Marketing
Marketing is a social process which satisfies consumers' wants. The term includes advertising, distribution and selling of a product or service. It is also concerned with anticipating the customers' future needs and wants, often through market research.

Two Levels of Marketing
Strategic Marketing attempts to determine how an organization competes against its competitors in a market place. In particular, it aims at generating a competitive advantage relative to its competitors.

Operational Marketing executes marketing functions to attract and keep customers and to maximize the value derived for them, as well as to satisfy the customer with prompt services and meeting the customer expectations. Operational Marketing includes the determination of the marketing mix.

Four Ps
 In popular usage, "marketing" is the promotion of products, especially advertising and branding. However, in professional usage the term has a wider meaning which recognizes that marketing is customer centered. Products are often developed to meet the desires of groups of customers or even, in some cases, for specific customers. E. Jerome McCarthy divided marketing into four general sets of activities. His typology has become so universally recognized that his four activity sets, the Four Ps, have passed into the language.

The four Ps are:
  • Product: The product aspects of marketing deal with the specifications of the actual goods or services, and how it relates to the end-user's needs and wants. The scope of a product generally includes supporting elements such as warranties, guarantees, and support.
  • Pricing: This refers to the process of setting a price for a product, including discounts. The price need not be monetary - it can simply be what is exchanged for the product or services, e.g. time, energy, psychology or attention.
  • Promotion: This includes advertising, sales promotion, publicity, and personal selling, and refers to the various methods of promoting the product, brand, or company.
  • Placement or distribution refers to how the product gets to the customer; for example, point of sale placement or retailing. This fourth P has also sometimes been called Place, referring to the channel by which a product or services is sold (e.g. online vs. retail), which geographic region or industry, to which segment (young adults, families, business people), etc.
These four elements are often referred to as the marketing mix,[1] which a marketer can use to craft a marketing plan. The four Ps model is most useful when marketing low value consumer products. Industrial products, services, high value consumer products require adjustments to this model. Services marketing must account for the unique nature of services. Industrial or B2B marketing must account for the long term contractual agreements that are typical in supply chain transactions. Relationship marketing attempts to do this by looking at marketing from a long term relationship perspective rather than individual transactions.

As a counter to this, Morgan, in Riding the Waves of Change (Jossey-Bass, 1988), suggests that one of the greatest limitations of the 4 Ps approach "is that it unconsciously emphasizes the inside–out view (looking from the company outwards), whereas the essence of marketing should be the outside–in approach". Nevertheless, the 4 Ps offer a memorable and workable guide to the major categories of marketing activity, as well as a framework within which these can be used.

Seven Ps
As well as the standard four Ps (Product, Pricing, Promotion and Place), services marketing calls upon an extra three, totaling seven and known together as the extended marketing mix. These are:
  • People: Any person coming into contact with customers can have an impact on overall satisfaction. Whether as part of a supporting service to a product or involved in a total service, people are particularly important because, in the customer's eyes, they are generally inseparable from the total service . As a result of this, they must be appropriately trained, well motivated and the right type of person. Fellow customers are also sometimes referred to under 'people', as they too can affect the customer's service experience, (e.g., at a sporting event).
  • Process: This is the process(es) involved in providing a service and the behaviour of people, which can be crucial to customer satisfaction.
  • Physical Evidence: Unlike a product, a service cannot be experienced before it is delivered, which makes it intangible. This, therefore, means that potential customers could perceive greater risk when deciding whether to use a service. To reduce the feeling of risk, thus improving the chance for success, it is often vital to offer potential customers the chance to see what a service would be like. This is done by providing physical evidence, such as case studies, testimonials or demonstrations.
Indian Marketing Scenario
Currently in India, the national economy and marketplace are undergoing rapid changes and transformation. A large number of reasons could be attributed to these changes. One of the reasons in these changes in the Indian Market Scenario is Globalization, and the subsequent and resulting explosive growth of global trade and the international competition.

The other reason for these changes in the Indian Market Scenario is the technological change. This is an important factor because the technological competitiveness is making, not only the Indian market, but also the global marketplace cutthroat.

In the Indian Marketing Scenario, the market success goes to those companies that are best matched to the current environmental imperatives. Those companies that can deliver what the people want and can delight the Indian customers are the market leaders.

Today the companies are operating in such a marketplace where survival of the fittest is the law. In order to win, the companies are coming out with various new and evolving strategies because the Indian market is also changing very fast. It is to capture the Indian market, that the Indian and the Multi National Companies are using all of their resources.

The Indian market is no longer a sellers market. The winner is the one who provides value for money. A large number of companies have huge idle capacities, as they have wrongly calculated the market size and installed huge capacities. This has further contributed to converting the Indian market into a buyers market.

The Indian Marketing Scenario is one of the biggest consumer markets and that is precisely the reason why India has attracted several MNC’s. These large Multi National Companies have realized that to succeed in the Indian market-place they need to hire Indian representative who are much more aware of the Indian economic, political, legal and social realities. In the Indian Marketing Scenario, it is the MADE FOR INDIA marketing strategies that work.