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FOR ESTATE & TRUST FIRMS

The great wealth transfer is underway.

Tens of trillions in generational wealth moves over the next two decades, and estate planning, trust administration, and elder law firms sit at the center of it. Most still market like it is 1995. The bench brings the content, search, and referral experience; you bring the advisor list. Your first hour is free.

Book your first hour free Read the market
US market$16Bwills, estates and trusts law revenue, offices with employees, 2022 (Census Bureau)
No willMore than halfof U.S. adults have no will (Gallup, 2021: 46% have one)
Your first hourFreewith any operator on the bench

THE MARKET

Professional referrals. Trust compounding.
Content authority.

Estate planning is the one major legal vertical where most clients do not search in the moment of need. They ask their financial advisor, their CPA, a friend, a lawyer they heard on a podcast. The decision sits on the to-do list for years.

The firms that win estate are not running big paid campaigns. They are building fifteen-year content authority and thirty-year advisor relationships, and being the name that gets passed around.

No urgency
Estate planning is not bought with urgency. Marketing has to stay present across a consideration window measured in years.
Advisors lead
Financial advisors, CPAs, insurance agents, and prior clients are a leading source of high-value matters for many firms.
DIY at the low end
Trust & Will, LegalZoom, and advisor will-writing tools take the simple end. Retained practice moves upmarket.
Authority compounds
The firms with the best podcasts, books, and search content own the category. Nothing compounds like authority in estate.

WHERE THE MONEY GOES

Marketing,
built on trust over years.

Estate marketing is the opposite of PI: small paid spend, heavy investment in advisor relationships, and long-cycle content authority that compounds for decades.

  • National authority firmLargestNational estate firms running podcasts, books, seminars, and advisor programs. Trust is the product; marketing builds it.
  • Regional firmMid-sizeMulti-office regional estate firms with systematic advisor programs and local seminars.
  • Boutique / soloSmallestMost estate firms. Referral-dominant, minimal paid spend. Relationship depth matters more than budget.

Sources: U.S. Census Bureau 2022 Economic Census (revenue at law offices with employees, so a floor); Gallup, 2021 (wills). No public source breaks out marketing spend by practice area. Tier descriptions are Firmatics estimates.

WHAT ESTATE & TRUST FIRMS FACE

The problems specific
to estate marketing.

A pipeline that lives on relationships, a low end going to software, and a moat that takes years to build. This is what estate firms bring to the bench.

  1. Your advisor network is your pipeline, and unmeasured.

    Most of your business arrives through financial advisors, and few firms track which advisors refer, at what rate, or why. The pipeline lives on relationships nobody manages on purpose.

  2. Online wills are eating the simple end.

    A cheap online will takes simple clients off the market. You cannot compete on price, so you reposition upmarket, which means repositioning your marketing.

  3. Content compounds slowly, and painfully.

    Authority is the moat, and it takes years of consistent publishing. Most firms cannot sustain the investment without monthly proof it is working.

  4. Your client base turns over by nature.

    Estate work is transactional with long gaps: plans are signed, estates close, heirs go elsewhere. Continuous new-client acquisition is existential, and most firms treat estate as a retention business.

  5. Flat fees change the positioning.

    Modern estate firms are moving to flat-fee packages. Marketing a package is not marketing an hourly lawyer, and most firms have not made the shift in their message.

  6. The seminar playbook is fading.

    The retirement-center seminar of the 1990s is losing its pull, and podcasts, virtual events, and digital content have not fully replaced it. Whoever builds the next version owns the decade.

AN HOUR WITH AN OPERATOR

The questions Estate & trust firms
bring to the bench.

Coaching is 4 private hours a month with any operator on the bench, and your first hour is free. Bring your team or your agency. These are the Estate & trust conversations that happen there.

  1. ADVISOR REFERRALS

    How do we grow advisor referrals without a sales team?

    Turning the advisors who send you work into a program you can see and tend, from an operator who has built referral engines for professional firms.

  2. CONTENT

    Should we start the podcast, the book, or the blog?

    Which authority play fits your firm and your decade, how to sustain it, and how to know whether it is producing plans rather than downloads.

  3. AI SEARCH

    How do we get cited when families ask an AI about trusts?

    An operator working on AI search every day on what to publish and how to measure visibility when there is no click.

  4. POSITIONING

    How do we move upmarket from online wills?

    Repositioning fees, packages, and message for complex plans and business owners, with an operator who has done the repositioning.

  5. PAID SEARCH

    Is paid search worth anything in estate?

    Where a small paid budget earns its keep in a long-consideration category, and where it is a donation to Google.

  6. EVENTS

    What replaces the seminar?

    Designing the next version of the estate seminar, live and virtual, and the follow-up that turns attendees into plans.

Dan JimmersonBlair WarnerErik KullenbergPaco BlancoAmanda JudgeDavid RyanMatt PrinceHayden HaskinsIvan Rodrigues

Any operator on the bench, any of these questions.

Book your first hour free How Coaching works

ESTATE & TRUST BY FIRM SIZE

Different stages.
Different playbooks.

Estate marketing changes with size, from local advisor relationships to national content authority and a platform with RIA and CPA partnerships.

Planned · 2027The State of Estate & Trust.The wealth-transfer decade: financial-advisor referral economics, content-authority winners, fee-model shifts, and the playbooks for a quiet category getting loud.See the reports roadmap

COMMON QUESTIONS

Straight answers for Estate & trust firms.

Have your operators run estate marketing?

The bench ran marketing at some of the largest consumer law firms in the country, deepest in personal injury, in the channels estate firms also buy: content, organic and AI search, paid search, referral programs, and attribution. Estate’s consideration cycle is different. The operator works from your numbers, not a PI template. Anything that needs legal judgment stays with your lawyers.

Do you work with elder law and Medicaid-planning practices?

Yes. The marketing questions are the same ones: advisor referrals, content authority, long consideration windows, and positioning against DIY tools.

Is Firmatics an agency?

No. We never run your media and we do not sell leads. Coaching backs up your agency and your in-house team with a second opinion, a plan, and a read on the numbers. Good agencies like having an operator on the client side.

What does Coaching cost, and how do we start?

$2,000 per firm per month for four private one-hour credits with any operator on the bench, month to month. Your first hour is free: create an account, pick an operator, bring your numbers.

When does the State of Estate & Trust publish?

It is on the roadmap for 2027, after the reports now being written. It will publish fully on the site, free, and the Monday Brief will carry it the week it lands.

YOUR FIRST HOUR IS FREE

Ready before the next advisor lunch.

Your first hour with an operator is free. Bring the advisor list and the content calendar.

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