Picture this: lawmakers just rewrote your state’s inheritance tax rules. If clients don’t update their plans, their heirs pay the price.
A quick, well-timed email alert keeps clients informed—and reminds them you’re the estate planning firm they can trust to protect family wealth.
What Is Email Marketing?
Email marketing is not the same as your day-to-day client correspondence. It’s a structured campaign that builds trust through timely, relevant updates.
An email marketing strategy has many business development benefits for an estate law attorney. These benefits come from repeated touchpoints with former and current clients and others, including referral sources.
Email marketing incorporates branding, extended client service, and relationship-building strategies through the sharing of helpful and interesting content. In addition, marketing emails drive traffic to the firm’s website, where potential clients and others can learn even more about the practice.
For trusts and estates law attorneys in particular, email marketing is especially effective given that clients are generally laypeople who rely on their attorneys for updates and compliance instructions. While clients should be making regular updates to estate plans and trusts as circumstances change in their lives, providing information that may warrant an estate plan review is good for business development and client service.
And you won’t be alone: an ABA 2021 survey shows 72% of firms now send client alerts—a number that keeps climbing.
Email Marketing Content
First and foremost, only send emails that provide value. Like a marketing content strategy, the emails should include information that clients need or want to know. Answer questions clients frequently ask or search keywords like “estate planning” and “what is a trust?” to see what other attorneys write on the subjects and what’s trending.
Share high-interest topics:
“Three Lessons from the Aretha Franklin Hand-Written Will Dispute”
“How California's New Trust Regulations Affect Special Needs Heirs”
Any thought leader articles or blog posts posted to the firm’s website can be sent in an email. Firm updates, including expanded services or new team members, are also appropriate, as are announcements about upcoming webinars and seminars and links to recordings of past presentations. Skip routine awards; reserve email space for updates clients actually need.
Here are a few key tips when composing an email:
- The content in the email itself should be simple, concise, and focused.
- Use summaries or the first few sentences of an article in the email to draw readers in, then link to the full content on the website to bring visitors there.
- Use images to break up the text.
- Aim for 150–200 words in the body; link out for deeper reads. Busy clients appreciate brevity.
Many law firms utilize an email marketing system, which includes features like automation, branded templates, easy contact list management, and analytics.
Some attorneys create content and sending schedules to stay on track while others send as the occasion presents itself. Emails can be single subject or a “newsletter” format that includes several articles at a time sent weekly, monthly, or quarterly.
Email Marketing Distribution Lists
An email distribution list is equally important to the content in an email marketing strategy. Email recipients should include past and current clients, referral sources including colleagues at other law firms, media, and potential recruits.
Firms that utilize a client relationship management (CRM) system are ahead in the list-building game. Otherwise, create a list using the following:
Import professional contacts firm-wide.
Add an opt-in checkbox to every new client intake form.
Use a website signup form—and link to it in blogs and social posts.
Offer “lead magnets” (estate plan checklists, webinar replays) in exchange for an email address.
If a law firm has more services than trusts and estates law, it should consider segmenting lists by practice so that recipients only receive information they’re interested in. For example, a trusts and estates client should not receive emails regarding corporate law. Nothing makes people feel spammed more than unwanted emails in their inbox from someone they thought was a trusted source.
When collecting subscribers, ask for more than just an email address. First and last names, especially since it’s not always obvious who personal email addresses belong to, and phone numbers are helpful in both lead tracking and follow-up communications. If clients include businesses, ask for company names and the subscriber’s title.
DO NOT buy lists. It may be tempting to grow distribution this way, but it’s better to reach less people who are interested than more people who are not. List purchasing also puts the firm at more risk of violating privacy and spam laws.
Email Marketing Rules & Regulations
There are many laws that address how businesses, including law firms, should obtain and manage contacts. The European Union’s General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR), the California Consumer Privacy Act (CCPA), other states’ privacy protection laws, the CAN-SPAM Act, and professional ethics and responsibility rules all place various restrictions and requirements on email marketing. Which regulations apply depend on the size and location of the law firm, among other factors.
Some basic email marketing rules to follow:
Allow new contacts to opt in to an email distribution list and existing clients opportunities to opt out by providing links in each email.
Be sure the firm’s name and address are in every email.
Use descriptive subject lines.
Use a double-opt-in confirmation email to verify consent and reduce bounce rates.
Measuring for Success
Since there are many benefits to using email marketing as a trusts and estates law attorney, it is important to set goals and expectations to focus on what matters most.
Whether it’s building readers, increasing website visitors, or generating new client leads, be sure to measure results.
Email marketing systems provide analytics on how many recipients opened the email and how many clicked through to read more. According to Mailchimp, which provides email marketing systems to a wide variety of industries, the average “open” rate for legal industry marketing emails is about 22%, a solid benchmark to beat.
Want emails that drive consultations, not just clicks? Let’s talk. Scorpion’s estate-law email team writes, designs, and tracks every send—so you see exactly how each message turns into new matters.
