Annual Marketing Calendar for Estate Planning Attorneys

By Christoph Olivier, Founder, CO Consulting

Last reviewed: July 2026

An annual marketing calendar for estate planning attorneys maps one anchor campaign to each month of the year, tied to a moment prospects already care about: new-year resolutions, tax season, Healthcare Decisions Day, National Estate Planning Awareness Week, and the year-end gifting deadline. This is the cadence document, not the strategy. A calendar tells you what to run in April and why. A marketing plan tells you what your budget, channels, and positioning should be. This article covers the first one.

Below is a full 12-month calendar you can lift into your firm, plus a grid that maps four channels (seminars, content, email, and Google Business Profile posts) across the year. Every date is a real, recurring hook. The point is to stop starting from a blank page every month.

What an annual marketing calendar actually does

A marketing calendar sequences your campaigns across 12 months so nothing gets improvised. For estate planning firms, it anchors each month to a calendar moment prospects respond to, then assigns the content, email, seminar, and social output that supports it. It is a scheduling tool, not a strategy. It assumes you already know your budget and audience.

The reason estate planning lends itself to a fixed calendar is that the buying triggers repeat every year on schedule. Tax season pushes people to review documents. October carries a congressionally recognized awareness week. Year-end forces gifting decisions. Plan the year once and you convert those predictable spikes into booked consultations instead of scrambling to react. Plan at least 90 days ahead of each anchor so seminar invites, content, and email sequences are ready before the moment arrives.

The month-by-month marketing calendar

Here is the anchor campaign for each month, with the estate-planning reason behind it. Run one primary theme per month and let your channels support it rather than chasing four disconnected ideas.

Q1 (January to March): resolutions and tax season

Q1 is the strongest stretch of the year for estate planning attention because two triggers stack: the new-year “organize my life” impulse and tax season, when people already have their financial documents open. Lead January with a reactivation email to past clients and a resolution-themed article. Use February to strengthen referral relationships. Make March a plan-review push.

January’s resolution angle works because prospects are primed to “get their affairs in order.” Send existing clients and stalled leads a short email inviting a review, and publish a plain-language piece on what a complete plan includes. In March, tie your outreach to tax season: when a client is already sitting with their CPA, it is the natural moment to revisit beneficiary designations, trusts, and gifting. This is also the right window for an OBBBA check-in. The One Big Beautiful Bill Act made the roughly $15 million per-person estate and gift tax exemption ($30 million per married couple in 2026) permanent and indexed to inflation, which killed the old “2026 sunset” deadline. Frame this as reassurance and a reason to review, not as a countdown.

Q2 (April to June): health decisions and readiness

Q2 shifts from money to the human side of planning: healthcare directives, elder law, and disaster readiness. April anchors on National Healthcare Decisions Day (April 16), May on National Elder Law Month, and June on hurricane and wildfire preparedness. These themes reach spouses and adult children who often drive the family’s decision to finally plan.

National Healthcare Decisions Day falls on April 16, the day after the federal tax deadline, by design: it pairs healthcare planning with the year’s other big planning task. Host a seminar or webinar on living wills, healthcare powers of attorney, and choosing an agent. May’s National Elder Law Month is your window for Medicaid-planning and long-term-care content and talks at senior communities. In June, the start of Atlantic hurricane season (and wildfire season in western states) supports a “could your family find and act on your documents in an emergency” campaign. Keep the tone practical, not alarmist.

Q3 (July to September): families and the October ramp

Q3 targets young families and sets up your biggest quarter. July is a mid-year review nudge, August leans into back-to-school guardianship for parents, and September is pure preparation for October’s awareness week. Do not treat late summer as dead time; September is when the October seminar has to be booked and promoted.

August’s back-to-school moment is a clean hook for parents who have never named a guardian for their children. A short “who would raise your kids” seminar or content series converts well because the fear is concrete and immediate. September is operational: lock the October venue or webinar date, write the invitation sequence, queue the awareness-week content, and warm your list so the October launch lands on an engaged audience rather than a cold one.

Q4 (October to December): awareness week and year-end gifting

Q4 holds your two heaviest campaigns. National Estate Planning Awareness Week runs October 19-25 in 2026 (the third full week of October), and it is the single best moment to go wide across every channel. November and December then pivot to the year-end gifting deadline, when the $19,000-per-recipient annual gift tax exclusion expires on December 31.

Awareness week was adopted by the House of Representatives in 2008 specifically to get the public thinking about estate planning, which gives your October push external credibility. Run a flagship seminar or webinar, pitch local press, and coordinate email, social, and GBP posts around the week. In November and December, shift to gifting: high-net-worth clients who want to use the annual exclusion or make larger lifetime gifts must act before year-end, so co-market with the financial advisors and CPAs who serve those same clients. Close December by scheduling January’s resolution campaign so the calendar loops without a gap.

How to map channels across the calendar

Each monthly anchor should show up in four channels: a seminar or webinar, a piece of content, an email, and Google Business Profile posts. Mapping them in a grid keeps every channel pointed at the same theme instead of drifting. The grid below shows the seasonal rhythm; not every channel fires at full volume every month.

Content is the engine that feeds the other three channels, so build the article or video first, then cut it into email and social. If you want a repeatable system for producing that content on schedule, this is where content marketing for estate planning attorneys earns its keep. The distribution side, especially your monthly newsletter and seminar sequences, is covered by email marketing for estate planning attorneys. For the full picture of how these channels fit together with paid, local, and referral, start at the hub on marketing for estate planning attorneys.

Keep the calendar compliant

Everything on your calendar has to clear ABA advertising rules. Model Rule 7.1 bars false or misleading claims, which means no promises about case outcomes, tax savings, or protected assets. Rule 7.2 governs advertising and referral arrangements, and Rule 7.3 restricts live, in-person solicitation of specific prospects. Seminars, content, and email are permitted; guarantees and high-pressure solicitation are not.

Practically, that shapes your language. Say a plan review “can help you confirm your documents still reflect your wishes,” not “will protect your estate from taxes.” Keep records of your advertisements as your state requires, and make sure any co-marketing with advisors does not become an improper payment for referrals. Confirm your state’s version of these rules, since several states modify the ABA model text. When the calendar stays educational, the compliance risk stays low.

If building and running this calendar every month is more than your team can carry, that is the kind of ownership a fractional CMO takes off your plate. Book a consultation and we can map your firm’s 12-month calendar together.

Frequently asked questions

When is National Estate Planning Awareness Week in 2026?
National Estate Planning Awareness Week runs October 19-25, 2026. It falls during the third full week of October each year and was adopted by the House of Representatives in 2008. Because it carries congressional recognition, it is the strongest single anchor on the estate planning marketing calendar and deserves your biggest cross-channel push.

How far ahead should I plan each campaign?
Plan at least 90 days ahead of each anchor moment. Seminar venues, invitation sequences, content, and email drips all need lead time, and the awareness-week and year-end pushes need even more. Building the full 12-month calendar once, then working 90 days ahead of each month, prevents the last-minute scramble that produces weak, off-theme campaigns.

What are the best months for an estate planning seminar?
April and October are the two strongest seminar windows. April 16 is National Healthcare Decisions Day, ideal for an advance-directive event, and October carries National Estate Planning Awareness Week. August also works well for a guardianship seminar aimed at parents. Pick the months where an external date gives your invitation a built-in reason to attend.

Should I still market around the 2026 estate tax sunset?
No. The One Big Beautiful Bill Act made the roughly $15 million per-person exemption ($30 million per couple in 2026) permanent and indexed to inflation, so the old “exemption drops in 2026” urgency no longer exists. Replace deadline fear with plan-review framing: encourage clients to confirm their documents still fit their goals under the new permanent rules.

What is the annual gift tax exclusion for 2026?
The annual gift tax exclusion is $19,000 per recipient in 2026. Gifts up to that amount per person do not use any of the lifetime exemption and must be completed by December 31. That hard deadline is what drives your November and December year-end gifting campaigns and your co-marketing with financial advisors and CPAs.

How many campaigns should I run per year?
Run one anchor campaign per month, twelve total, each tied to a calendar moment. Layer your seminar, content, email, and Google Business Profile output under that single monthly theme rather than launching disconnected promotions. One focused theme a month is easier to execute well and reads as a coherent narrative to prospects across the year.