Traditionally, marketing used to be associated only with the business sector and be perceived as a discipline which has nothing much to offer the public sector. However, some would suggest that many of the management tools developed in business organisations can be, mutatis mutandis, successfully applied in public organisations. Hence, this paper aims to identify what marketing concepts and tools that are used in business organisations can be applied in the public sector and what are the preconditions for their implementation. To this end, two major approaches which have emerged in public management as an alternative to the classical bureaucratic approach are discussed: New Public Management and governance approach. On one hand, it can be argued that they offer wider application possibilities for marketing thinking, on the other - as they are two distinctive approaches they imply quite different marketing concepts and tools. In New Public Management a citizen is seen more as a customer of public services and goods, is at the receiving end of public policies; in the governance approach - is seen more as a partner empowered to shape public services that support him. Nudging and co-creation concepts are discussed as examples of marketing ideas within the context of these two public management paradigms.