Are Digital Marketing and Referral Marketing Contradictory?

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In this episode, Danny Decker breaks down a common misconception inside the legal world: the belief that referral marketing and digital marketing are somehow competing strategies. Using real examples and data, Danny explains why these two channels actually amplify each other — especially for solo and small law firms that rely heavily on top-of-mind visibility. He shows how email newsletters, retargeting, and consistent online content can strengthen your referral network and dramatically improve conversion rates. If you’ve ever felt torn between “staying referral-based” and “doing more marketing,” this episode clears it up. 

📌 Key Takeaways:

• Why referrals and digital marketing aren’t in competition
• How digital content keeps your referral sources engaged and active
• The simple digital systems that generate more (and better) referrals

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Episode Transcript

SPEAKER_00 (00:00):
Alright, so referral marketing and intelligent
digital marketing are not atodds with each other.
I I it's funny because I seethis conversation and I've been
part of some of theseconversations.
There are definitely attorneysout there, maybe even like you
know, law firm marketingconsultants out there who kind
of put referral marketing in acompletely separate bucket from

(00:22):
digital marketing.
And there are there are lawfirms out there, I've had these
conversations personally whereyou know the attorney takes
great pride in the referralsthat they're getting and and
really looks down on digitalmarketing.
It's like I would never marketmyself.
I get 100% of my businessthrough through referrals and
word of mouth.
But listen, they're not at oddswith each other.
Okay, I can understand if youare very selective as a law firm

(00:44):
about the types of clients youwant to take on, where maybe a
Google ad strategy is nothelpful for your firm and does
not align with your firm.
But there's so much more thatdigital marketing can do for you
besides generate leads throughGoogle.
Two simple examples.
Let's say you uh have built thisreferral network over the years,
you've got this network of pastclients, referral sources,

(01:06):
colleagues, attorneys, and otherpractice areas who refer you
work.
Well, wouldn't you be able toget more referrals from those
people if you kept yourself moretop of mind with them?
Right?
The reality is every single oneof us is bombarded with with
thoughts, touch points,messages, marketing, advertising
every single day.

(01:27):
And no matter how much somebodylikes you, if you don't find a
way to continue to sort ofcompete for that real estate in
their brain, like you're gonnalose track of them, they're
gonna lose track of you.
So you use email marketing, youuse digital retargeting to keep
yourself connected to yourreferral sources, right?
So take them out to lunch, sendthem a birthday card.

(01:48):
That's all great, but you can'tdo that for your whole list
every single month.
You also need to have an emailnewsletter that puts your
content in front of them atleast once a month.
You should have socialretargeting so that when they
log on to Facebook, Instagram,LinkedIn, they are seeing your
content, okay?
That is how you keep thatrelationship primed and get more

(02:09):
referrals.
So a hundred percent, I lovereferral marketing.
I think referral marketing isamazing.
We see the data all the time.
Clients who, uh potentialclients who come to you through
referral are going to convertinto paying clients, like
usually like 65 to 70% of thetime versus other types of
marketing, that number is lower,right?
It might be 30%.
So the question isn't like, man,I should just throw out all

(02:32):
those other opportunities.
The question is, one, what canyou do with your digital
marketing to get yourself moreof the best possible leads,
which we just identified asreferrals?
So don't look at referralmarketing and digital marketing
as competing, look at them as uhcomplimentary and ask your
marketing person how can we usedigital marketing to help us get

(02:54):
more?

SPEAKER_01 (02:56):
The law firm marketing minute is brought to
you by Spotlight Marketing andBranding, where we help solo and
small law firms get more plansand better clients.
If you want more details, visitgrowmylaw firmplets.com.