If I could sum up the primary fear small business owners have about their marketing, it’s not wasting money on ineffective ads or making content that doesn’t resonate with their audience or having a website that doesn’t convert well, it’s this: What if I send an email or post on Instagram or Facebook and I get the dreaded UNSUBSCRIBE or UNFOLLOW? Dun, dun, dun…

What if i’m sending too many emails and my audience gets sick of seeing me pop into their inbox? What if I post about the same thing for the fifth time this week and my followers are irritated enough to unlike or unfollow me? What if?

Well, what if? What would make an email subscriber not want to see more of your emails or a social media follower not want to see more of your social media posts?

If you are aware of the reasons someone followed you in the first place, or why they may unfollow or unsubscribe, and do what you can to prevent it, you don’t have to worry or wonder. You can be a more confident business marketer, knowing you’re doing your part and not being concerned with how your audience reacts to any give piece of content. Because here’s the truth that needs to be bigger than this fear – you HAVE to put out frequent content on most platforms for them to work. And this means getting over the worry that you’ll turn someone of.

Here’s how to think about your content so you won’t let this fear control your marketing results and business growth.

• You will inherit followers and email subscribers who weren’t serious in the first place. When you offer incentives, have a big launch, push for follows, tell your friends and family about your endeavors, increase your reach through ads, you will temporarily gain a few curious bystanders. And they will be back out the door as quickly as they jumped in. That’s fine. You still win. They are now aware of you which could lead to a future re-follow if and when they need what you offer, they could potentially refer you, and they likely provided some website traffic (a tiny SEO-booster that can add up) or engagement on your social accounts. It wasn’t for nothing!

• You will have serious followers who evolve away from you over the course of time. Maybe you served them well while they needed it but their circumstances have changed and they simply don’t need your service or product anymore. Hopefully you left them with a good impression so they’re quick to refer you to others, or, even better, give you a testimonial.

• You will have in-and-out audience members who are riding random waves of need or hype. This type of audience member may not be as intuitive as the others but I thought of it because I’ve been this person at times. Particularly when there’s hype around a certain personality, cultural trend, or product. We can all be flaky followers, jumping on a bandwagon with others’ enthusiasm, getting a little obsessive for a minute, then jumping back out when their content isn’t as relevant to us. You may not have massive amounts of followers doing this but you’re bound to gain a few along the way. Take the compliment and keep moving forward. Like the other follower types, you still gain awareness, traffic and possibly even some sales for it.

Your email lists and social media followers will ebb and flow, for varying reasons. Your focus HAS to be on the ideal audience within your larger audience. That smaller percentage that best fits your perfect customer. If you are creating content, posting socially, and sending according to how often they need your content or your reminders (because another marketing rule-of-thumb is to repeat yourself as people are BUSY and FORGETFUL!), you will always have the following you need to support a healthy, growing business. And that’s what your marketing is all about.

Listen, your true fans who stick with you over the long-term are the ones who will become paying customers.

The unfollows and unsubscribes should never determine what marketing or how much marketing you do. In fact, some of you need to get comfortable with more unfollows because that’s an indication you’re doing more of the right thing.

What are you going to do this week for your business? You’re going to stop making marketing decisions out of fear of the unfollow and unsubscribe. Okay? Okay. Now let’s go grow our businesses based on our true fans!