1/ My thoughts #gamedev #indiedev #marketing
Start marketing ASAP in the process. Gather and involve fans as much as possible to get them invested.

2/ Ultimately, the audience you want to market to is your fans, but you may need to market to other audiences that are easier to find as you grow your fan audience.
Finding players is more difficult than finding developers.

3/ Some developers may be potential players of your game, but not all.
SO:
Deliver value to whoever you can. Delivering value gets you an audience.

4/ Note that value is in the eyes of the audience - so what interests developers may be different from what interests players. Though again there may be some crossover.

5/ The value in delivering value to whatever group you can is that social posts have network effects. If you develop any kind of following (developers, players, candlestick makers), when it comes time for you to promote your project you'll have more potential eyes on it

6/ -- eyes that belong to people you have already delivered value to -- and they may deliver value back by liking and sharing your project promotion.

7/ Even though developers aren't exactly your ideal "player audience", if developers who appreciate the value you've previously delivered to them then re-share your promotional content to *their audience* of players, then you are reaching those game players (who you otherwise…

8/ …couldn't reach at all) on account of the value you've previously delivered to developers. I don't think this is perfect or easy, but it is a plan.

9/ And again, eventually you want to reach a point of having fans of your own (of you personally, or you as a developer, or the character in your game) that you can market future games to.
The long-term value is in the long-term thinking.

10/ Call of Duty #25 or Halo #25 or whatever is going to sell because they've built up that huge fanbase over the years and each new iteration is going to sell. Their brand promise to those fans ensures it. (It is good to learn more about branding!)

11/ On an indie level, look at GDC talks from long-term indie successes and you'll see they've been making solitaire games or basic RPG games for 10 or 20 years -- selling their latest games (and back catalog) to their fanbase. Old fans help promote the games to new fans.

12/ It all starts with getting one fan, and then one more.
And (to my thinking) delivering value along the way as best you can so that those people you helped might in-turn help you directly or indirectly in the future.
In that sense, think of marketing as like Karma.

13/ Massive corporations or small indies - there is money in the sequels (since they are easier to market to existing fans). Hence #makesequels and build your fanbase.

I hope this helped and delivered value to you, my fellow #gamedev #indiedev #solodev folks.