Marketing is one of the world's oldest professions. From the time of simple barter through the stage of a money economy to today's modern complex marketing system, exchanges have been taking place. The challenge facing marketers today is to find constructive ways to reconcile company profitability, customer satisfaction, and social responsibility. Marketing exists when people decide to satisfy needs and wants in a certain way that may be called exchange. Exchange is one of the ways in which a person can obtain a product capable of satisfying a particular need. The process calls for a considerable amount of work and skill. Organisations are more professional in handling exchange process they must attract resources from one set of markets and convert them in another set of markets.

Marketing management may be considered taking place when at least one party to a potential exchange gives thought to objectives and means of achieving desired responses from other parties. It is the analysis, planning, implementation and control of programmes designed to create, build and maintain mutually beneficial exchanges and relationships with target markets for the purpose of achieving organisational objectives. It can occur in connection with any market in its realm. It regulates the level, timing and character of demand to achieve its objective. The following are its tasks in general: (a) conversional marketing; (b) stimulational marketing; (c) developmental marketing; (d) remarketing; (e) synchromarketing; (f) demarketing; and (g) counter marketing.

Conversional marketing grows from the state of negative demand in which all or most of the important segments of the potential market dislike the product or service and in fact might conceivably pay a price to avoid it. It is the task of the conversional marketing to develop a plan to cause demand to rise from negative to positive and eventually equal the positive supply level. No demand state of a product exists when people are indifferent to such product. The task of performing such state into positive demand is called stimulational marketing. When a substantial number of people share a strong need for something that does not exist in the form of an actual product or service it is called latent demand. The process of effectively transforming latent demand into an actual demand is known as developmental marketing. When the demand of product declines and shows possibility of further fall the marketing task involved in such case is remarketing. When a product's current timing pattern of demand is marked by seasonal or volatile fluctuations the marketing task of synchromarketing is necessary to bring the movement of demand and supply into better synchronisation. Full demand exists when current level and timing of demand is equal to the desired level and timing of demand. The task of marketer in such a state is maintenance marketing through maintenance of efficiency in the carrying out of day-to-day marketing activities and eternal vigilance in spotting new forces that may threaten to erode demand. Overfull demand exists when demand for a product or service begins to outpace the supply substantially. The task of reducing such demand is known as demarketing. Such task, however, is not popular with the marketers. In a state of unwholesome demand the demand is felt excessive because of undesirable qualities associated with the offer. The task of trying to destroy such demand is called counter marketing.

There are five alternative concepts under which business and other organisations can conduct their marketing activity. They are, (i) the production concept, (ii) the product concept, (iii) the selling concept, (iv) the marketing concept, and (v) the social marketing concept. Production concept assumes that consumers will favour products available and affordable and therefore the major task of management is to increase production, distribution and efficiency. It is appropriate in situations where demand exceeds supply and when the cost of product is high. The product concept assumes that consumer will favour those products that offer the most quality for the price. As such the marketer should concentrate on improving product quality in such situation. The selling concept assumes that the consumers will not buy enough unless the organisation marks a substantial effort to stimulate their interest in its product. There are great risks in practicing such concept especially where customer satisfaction is considered secondary to getting the sale because the customer may lose trust in the marketers. The marketing concept holds that the key task of the organisation is to determine the needs and wants of target markets and to adopt the organisation to delivering the desired satisfactions more effectively and efficiently than its competitors.

The selling concept and the marketing concept are often confused by the people. Selling focuses on the needs of the buyer. The marketing concept replaces and reverses the logic of the selling concept. The selling concept starts with the firm's existing products and considers the task as one of using selling and promotion to stimulate a profitable volume of sales. The marketing concept starts with the firm's target customers and their needs and wants; it plans a coordinated set of products and programmes to serve their needs and wants; and it derives profits through creating customer satisfaction. It is the company's commitment to the time-honoured concept in economic theory known as consumer sovereignty.

The social marketing holds that the key task of the organisation is to determine the needs and wants of target markets and to adapt the organisation to delivering the desired satisfaction more effectively and efficiently than its competitors in a way that preserves and enhances the consumer's and society's well being. The concept differs from the simple marketing in two considerations. Firstly, it calls upon the marketer to concentrate on the buyers' needs and interests as well as on their wants. Secondly, it emphasises on the long-run consumer and social well-being. The major question facing companies is how societal marketing will affect their profitability. To the extent that societal marketing appears profitable companies can be expected to give it serious consideration.