Man is a social animal. Human needs and wants are shaped by interplay of various social forces. Marketing evolves through this peculiar social system. It involves relationships among members of the society. It helps business enterprises to estimate consumer demand and produce for their satisfactory consumption. It helps in anticipating customer demand and creating satisfied customers through conception, production, promotion and physical distribution of goods and services in a socially relevant exchange process.
American Marketing Association defines marketing as “the performance of business activities that direct the flow of goods and services from producer to consumer or user”. This definition seems somewhat narrow because of its emphasis on flow of products that have already been produced. This definition is more of a physical distribution oriented idea, which presupposes that there is nothing beyond smooth flow of quality goods and services to customers.
Phillip Kotler defines marketing as a societal process by which individuals and groups obtain what they need and want through creating, offering and freely exchanging products and services of value to each other. Marketing is an ongoing process of discovering and translating consumer needs and desires into products and services, creating demand for these products and services, serving the consumer and his demand through a network of marketing channels and expanding the market base in the face of competition. From a broader social point of view, definition of Paul Mazur is more relevant. Mazur defines marketing as the creation and delivery of a standard of living to society. This is a much broader approach, which views the firm as an organized behavior system designed to generate outputs of value to consumers.
Marketing is defined as development and distribution of goods and services for chosen consumer segments by which profitability is achieved