Marketing Ideas for Estate Planners

The clients exist. Roughly half of UK adults have no will and most of the ones who do have not looked at it in a decade. Getting them to ring you is the problem.

1. Look after the clients you already have#

The cheapest client you will ever get is one you already served. Estate planning clients are unusually well connected to other people at the same life stage — siblings, neighbours, the golf club, the church.

But they only refer you if they remember you, which means staying in touch: a review reminder, a note when the law changes, a card. Almost nobody does this, which is why almost nobody's referral engine works.

A system that schedules the follow-up beats an intention to do it.

2. Build two or three referral partners#

Financial advisers, accountants, mortgage brokers, estate agents and funeral directors all meet people who need a will and cannot write one.

What works: turn up in person, make it easy for them, and make them look good. Be the person who rings their client back the same day. What does not work: a leaflet, a generic email, or asking for referrals before you have given them a reason to trust you with their client relationship.

3. Speak to rooms of people#

Rotary, WI, community groups, retirement associations, workplace lunch-and-learns. Forty minutes on "what happens if you die without a will" to thirty retired people is the highest-conversion activity available to a new practitioner, and it costs a bus fare.

Talk about intestacy, about unmarried partners inheriting nothing, and about the Court of Protection. Everyone in the room knows someone it happened to.

4. Advertise the home visit#

A meaningful share of your market would rather not travel, and high-street firms rarely offer to come to them. Say it explicitly on every piece of material you produce.

5. Write about the things people actually search#

Not "the importance of estate planning". The specific, frightening questions: what happens to my house if I go into care; my partner and I aren't married; my son is going through a divorce; who looks after my children if we both die.

6. Follow up, which is not marketing but decides everything#

A quote sent and never chased is money you already spent acquiring and then threw away. A practice sending eight quotes a month and chasing none of them is leaving two or three sales on the table every month — more than any new channel will produce in the same period.

Fix this before you spend a penny on advertising.

7. Be checkable#

In an unregulated profession, verifiable credentials convert. An accreditation with a public register, a real address, a phone number answered by a person, and reviews with names on them.

What to do first, if you are starting#

Week one: tell everyone you know. Week two: approach three local advisers. Week three: offer a talk to two community groups. Week four: set up follow-up reminders for everyone you have spoken to.

None of that costs anything, and it will out-produce a website rebuild.

Related#

Starting a will writing business · How much do will writers earn? · Estate planning CRM