One of the biggest lessons I’ve learned as an entrepreneur is that your friends and family do not have to be your customers, your biggest supporters, or even understand what you’re building. We’re often taught that the people closest to us should automatically support our businesses. It’s great when that happens, but successful entrepreneurs eventually learn that you can’t build a business around that expectation.

Sometimes they simply aren’t your audience. Sometimes they don’t understand entrepreneurship, and sometimes family relationships are just complicated. I even have someone in my family we refer to as “the family thief” and con man. But if there’s one thing entrepreneurship teaches you, it’s to keep moving forward. You don’t need everyone’s support to persevere, grow, and succeed.

The same lesson applies to digital marketing.

A good digital marketing strategy should actually make your business less dependent on your immediate personal network. Your objective is to create a much larger network of potential customers, clients, partners, and advocates who may have never met you.

Here are three things I recommend from running my Atlanta Based Digital Marketing Agency:

1. Stop Marketing Only to People You Already Know

Your business shouldn’t depend on friends liking your Facebook posts, family members sharing your content, or former coworkers telling people about you.

Those things certainly help, but they aren’t a strategy.

Use SEO, Google Ads, social media, digital PR, content marketing, and other digital channels to reach people actively looking for the products or services you provide.

Think about the difference.

A friend might like your post because they know you.

A stranger might click your Google ad because they actually need what you’re selling.

From a business perspective, that second person may be far more valuable.

The goal of marketing isn’t simply to get attention. It’s to get the right attention from the right people at the right time.

2. Build a Digital Network That Belongs to You

One of the most powerful things about digital marketing is that you don’t need anyone’s permission to build an audience.

Your website, email database, social media following, Google rankings, content, reviews, media coverage, backlinks, and customer data all become valuable digital assets for your business.

And those assets compound over time.

Maybe 100 people discover your company this month. Then 500. Then 5,000.

Eventually, you can have thousands of people interacting with your business who have absolutely no personal connection to you.

That’s exactly what you want.

I’ve always believed that one of the primary purposes of digital marketing is to expand the economic network surrounding a business.

Instead of asking, “Who do I know?” you begin asking, “Who needs what I provide?”

That’s a much bigger market.

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3. Measure Results, Not Support

This may be the most important lesson.

Don’t measure your business by who congratulates you.

Don’t measure it by how many relatives share your posts.

Don’t measure it by whether your friends understand what you’re trying to accomplish.

Measure website traffic, qualified leads, phone calls, conversions, revenue, customer acquisition cost, lifetime customer value, and return on investment.

Those numbers don’t care whether someone likes you.

I’ve been in digital marketing for years, and one thing I’ve learned is that personal support and business results are two completely different things.

Some of the people who encourage you the most may never become customers. Meanwhile, someone you’ve never met can find your business through Google at 10:30 on a Tuesday morning and become one of your best clients.

That’s the beauty of digital marketing.

Your family may support you. They may not. Your friends may understand your vision. They may not.

Either way, they aren’t the market.

Build a digital strategy capable of reaching people who don’t know your name, don’t know your family, and don’t care about your personal relationships.

They simply have a problem, a need, or something they’re searching for.

And if your business can solve that problem better than the competition, that’s your customer.

Your personal network might help you get started.

Your digital network is what can help you grow beyond it.

Author: Dr. Celestine Chukumba is the founder of InterSearchMedia Atlanta Digital Marketing Agency.