My Understanding of Marketing

As I begin this Marketing class, I have been thinking about what exactly marketing is.  I have understood that marketing and selling are not the same thing, but I thought marketing is more closely related than Drucker on Marketing explains.  I conceptualized it as selling being the act of having the product or service a customer wants when they want it and then convincing them to pay the price you are asking.  Whereas marketing is better described as the as the actions taken to create consumer demand for the product or service you are then going to sell.

Drucker makes it clear this is not the case, though his conception of what lay people consider selling and marketing are not exactly what I thought them to be.  I wanted to see what other people think marketing is, so I looked up a couple different definitions.  The American Marketing Association defines it as "Marketing is the activity, set of institutions, and processes for creating, communicating, delivering, and exchanging offerings that have value for customers, clients, partners, and society at large." (http://www.marketingpower.com/AboutAMA/Pages/DefinitionofMarketing.aspx)  While Investopedia defines it as "The activities of a company associated with buying and selling a product or service. It includes advertising, selling and delivering products to people. People who work in marketing departments of companies try to get the attention of target audiences by using slogans, packaging design, celebrity endorsements and general media exposure. The four 'Ps' of marketing are product, place, price and promotion."

If Drucker's definition of marketing can be summed up as "creating a customer" then I think that my own as well as the two definitions above are not so far away from his thinking.  I think Drucker saw great importance in keeping the focus away from profit maximization and on creating customers.  At first glance it seems like splitting hairs; after all, you are creating a customer so that person will give you their money.  From their money comes your profit.  But 'creating a customer' humanizes the process in a way that 'profit maximization' cannot, and even can be diametrical to.