Marketing Strategies for Estate Planning Attorneys: Tips to Build Your Client Base

For elder law firms, their current client base requires their fullest attention, as there are end-of-life, asset protection, and other all-important matters at hand. That’s why any in-house or third-party marketing effort must count, and without forcing attorneys or their staff to master a new separate trade. We’ll cover the most time-tested marketing strategies for estate planning attorneys that you can implement or delegate to an experienced, industry-specific marketing company.

Five Legal Marketing Ideas Tailor-Fit for Estate Planning Firms

Tip #1: Leverage Referrals

Like all legal marketing, advertising costs can be much higher for law firms than for other industries. Unlike other types of legal marketing, elder law has a key advantage that helps firms go around the usual channels, or at least treat them as supplemental to their core strategy: maximizing referrals.

While a criminal defense or family law attorney may be hard-pressed to leverage many clients from a single source, estate planning is different. There, clients almost invariably have friends of a similar age, with similar net worth, and with similar goals. High-performing estate-planning firms can make a fantastic name for themselves by satisfying their clients, generating word-of-mouth, and accumulating the social proof necessary for self-perpetuating brand momentum.

This doesn’t mean neglecting your digital marketing, however; far from it. It means your marketing messages must be fine-tuned to appeal to the insular, local-first enthusiasm that made your well-served client base eager to share your referral. By emphasizing quality over quantity, the right clients at the right time are more likely to see the savvy, niche-specific marketing plan that follows as proof that their colleague’s recommendation was spot on.

Tip #2: Emphasize Client Loyalty

Center messages on your website, social media accounts, emails, and paid-per-click (PPC) ads around loyalty and long-term relationships. It will appeal to newcomers who want legal services that will endure — because leaving an enduring legacy is what’s dominating their thinking.

Beyond emphasizing your own loyalty to clients, consider also how you’ll demonstrate the loyalty of your current and past clients. This is most effectively done through reviews, which HubSpot reports play an important role in a full third of consumers’ purchasing decisions. With such high-dollar services involved in estate planning, however, you may need to go beyond basic Google or Yelp reviews.

See the same HubSpot report for an extensive list of other popular review sites. It’s even possible someone’s already beaten you to it and reviewed your firm without you knowing it. This can be extremely time-consuming to keep track of, which is one reason why most law firms opt for an outside advertising firm.

Tip #3: Become a Fountainhead of Knowledge

Compared to other types of law, estate planning attracts those more willing to put in work to learn what goes into proper asset protection, Medicaid strategies, and trust execution. More than any other subfield, marketing strategies for estate planning attorneys are a prime opportunity to share attractive bits of information that empower clients to trust your firm’s approach.

This can be done through marketing efforts that border on consumer education, including:

• – Webinars
• – A/V content (i.e., videos and podcasts)
• – Thorough, SEO-laden FAQs
• – Build a reputation answering questions on Reddit, Quora, or the ABA’s dedicated FreeLegalAnswers.org service (be sure to include geolocation)
• – Writing articles on sites such as LinkedIn, and continually updating your blog

Consider what your audience will think if your biggest competitor has almost nothing but urgent CTAs, while you’ve taken the time to present polished and thoughtful informational resources. Elder law clients are taking their time, and they’ll want to know that you do as well. Even if your competitors have already amassed an impressive wellspring of educational content, you should still tap into your greatest niche in estate planning and create your own unique resources.

It could even help you convert a competitor into an ally, as you trade referrals based on your mutual specialties — because why try to convert every possible lead when what you need are more quality leads?

Tip #4: Stay Active

Social proof is easier to find than ever. This can be a double-edged sword: your successes will speak for themselves, but ineffective responses (including non-responses) to questionable feedback can easily work against you. Don’t let all your hard work be derailed by one or two unaddressed issues, especially when all it takes is routinely monitoring your active social media and review sites.

This will show that you’re responsive, which is imperative in a law specialty where timing can be the difference between major tax penalties, probate proceedings, or heart-wrenching legal-medical issues. Staying consistently involved online also shows attention to detail, which is simply non-negotiable in drafting effective trusts and advance directives. If your clients see at a glance that you have a consistently and actively engaged mindset, they’ll naturally attribute those qualities to your capacities as an estate planner, as well.

Note that marketing efforts don’t end once you receive traffic. Continually updating your site further shows an active presence. One easy way to do this is to draft case studies after milestones or individual client successes, which will show that you mean business and have the means of engaging in effective PR on behalf of your whole team.

Tip #5: Track and Adjust

In any marketing campaign, it’s important to gauge the effect you’re having and modify accordingly. This requires learning and applying numerous KPIs to ensure your marketing dollars are generating maximum ROI.

Of course, even the best legal marketing ideas won’t help you learn this overnight — and truly mastering marketing analysis requires essentially adopting a second career. Still, it needs to be done if you want to ensure your estate planning marketing strategy is done right. While there’s much that can be done in-house (especially tips one and three), the most effective legal digital marketing plan requires the services of a true professional.

Full-Service Marketing Strategies for Estate Planning Attorneys

Alerio considers our client’s partners in every sense of the word. Rather than taking a one-size-fits-all approach and banking on volume, we attract clients who value working closely with us to ensure that we understand their role in their market with crystal clarity. Then, we adopt our role, either as your very own in-house marketing department or a full-scale business-development team.

For estate planning firms short on time but eager to expand, it doesn’t get much better than this. If you have any questions or would like to request a quote, don’t hesitate to contact us, and embark on your custom-built, full-spectrum marketing campaign today.