My wife, Robyn, and I just returned home from a wonderful vacation in Paris and London where we had an incredible time. We made sure we saw all the typical tourist stops on our trip. We went on several tours, ate all the local foods (especially crepes in Paris, and fish and chips in London), and we took pictures of everything… and I mean everything! Our cameras, backpacks, and tennis shoes easily gave away that we were tourists!

As we were touring around, I was amazed by how many massive monuments and intricately carved statues have withstood changes in leadership, world wars, and ultimately, time. Most of the structures we saw were built to remember an important person, or a great leader of England and France and their accomplishments. Another thing we were surprised by were the amount of grave sites inside the various churches we visited. There are burials of kings and queens dating back hundreds of years. There are also burial sites of politicians, civic leaders, artists and poets all within the walls of the churches. To us, this signified the place they held, and still hold within our society.

Since I grew up around the funeral industry, I was very intrigued by the amount of burials that took place within the churches. From Westminster Abby and St. Paul’s Cathedral in London to Notre Dame and Les Invalides in Paris, these magnificent structures were not just a place to worship, but also a place to remember the greatest among them who had passed on. They were a place to leave a lasting legacy for some of the most important historical figures in the world.

Seeing all of this really made me realize how important funeral planning and legacy planning really is to our society. For thousands of years people all across the world have built monuments to honor those who have passed. From the pyramids in Egypt to the catacombs in Rome, and from the cathedrals in Europe to the hallowed grounds of Arlington Cemetery, burial sites are an important way for us to remember those who’ve come before us.

Walking around and seeing the burial places of former kings and emperors of Europe really made me want to know more about their lives, and their legacy. It compelled me to read about who they were, and what they stood for. It inspired me to do more in my life, and in some cases, it made me want to make sure that I didn’t make the same mistakes they did.

It also made me realize how important sharing our personal history, values, traditions, and wisdom really is. We may not be kings and queens, but we have the opportunity to influence the future generations of our family. They will want to know “our story,” so we need to work now to share it with them and to help them remember us long after we’re gone.

Bryan W. Adams is President & CEO of Premier Planning, LLC and Founder of Legacy Safeguard. Bryan is considered one of the nations’ leading experts on final expense planning, and he frequently speaks throughout the country about the importance of assisting clients to gain peace of mind through advanced funeral funding.

Bryan’s passion for helping families prepare for their final expenses came from being raised in the funeral business. His family still owns and operates several funeral homes, and he is constantly amazed at how unprepared families are when a death occurs. Bryan has worked tirelessly to help Americans plan for the inevitable and lessen the burden on their loved ones.

Academy Guest Blogger
American Academy of Estate Planning Attorneys, Inc.
6050 Santo Rd Ste 240
San Diego, CA 92124
858-453-2128
www.aaepa.com

Twitter… it’s only for celebrity worshippers and self-centered twenty somethings who just have to keep everyone posted on their last Starbucks order, right? Not even close.

A micro blogging site that limits each of your posts (or “tweets”) to 140 characters or fewer, Twitter has evolved into an immensely powerful marketing, networking, and practice building tool. As of late 2010, Twitter had over 175 million users, and hundreds of thousands of new users were creating accounts each day. The average number of tweets each day averages 140 million.

What would it do for your business if your firm had even a small piece of that activity?

If you’re willing to use Twitter to get involved in conversations instead of simply endlessly plugging the services you want to sell, you can develop quite the following of clients and potential clients. And this can work wonders for your firm’s level of visibility, not to mention its bottom line.

Here are just a few ways you can use Twitter in your professional capacity:

• Enhance your network: After you join Twitter, you’ll “follow” other users, and many of them will “follow” you back. Once you start posting tweets, more people will be able to find and follow you. Twitter has the power to put you in touch with countless people – fellow lawyers, business people, and news and information sources, plus potential clients.
• Enhance your reputation: Twitter allows you to craft your professional reputation, and that of your firm, by choosing wisely the information and comments you’ll post.
• Drive traffic to your blog: When you add a post to your blog, you can tweet about it with a link to the full post. This lets you get the attention of other Twitter users who might not otherwise find your blog or website.
• Let people know what’s going on at your firm: Do you have a seminar coming up or have you published a new report? Twitter is a great place to get the word out to a large audience.
  

The world of online marketing can be an overwhelming one for attorneys. That’s why Robert Armstrong and I have collaborated on our soon-to-be-released book, Dominating Your Market. In it, we offer a blueprint for establishing a commanding internet presence for your firm, giving you all the tools you need to harness the unique power of the internet to position your firm as the source clients in your market seek out to meet their needs.

Sanford M. Fisch
CEO & Co-Founder
American Academy of Estate Planning Attorneys, Inc.
6050 Santo Rd Ste 240
San Diego, CA 92124
858-453-2128
www.aaepa.com

In my last post, we looked at a Case Study from the Academy’s New Orleans conference. I introduced you to your new clients, James and Susan. They’re a married couple in their late 50’s who met in college and have built a successful business, Widget Corp., amassing a current net worth of just under $20 million. Susan and James have two children. Mark, 35, is married with three children, and Emily, 33, is a newlywed with no children.

Susan and James’ estate planning goals are pretty straightforward: they want to leave their assets first to each other, then to their children and, of course, they want to reduce their ultimate tax burden as much as possible. So, what strategies do you suggest?

One advanced planning strategy we discussed at the Academy Spring Summit, and that Susan and James might want to consider, is gifting to irrevocable trusts. An irrevocable trust can be used to make a current gift to remove the assets from a grantor’s taxable estate. This is a particularly timely strategy, due to the temporary $5 million applicable exclusion available to each James and Susan under TRA 2010. Irrevocable trusts can be a great strategy for other reasons, as well:

• Protection of assets from beneficiaries’ creditors
• Protection of assets from future beneficiary divorce
• Protection of assets from the creditors of the grantor
• Protection  of assets from mismanagement by beneficiaries

In a jurisdiction that has repealed the Rule against Perpetuities, the assets in an irrevocable trust can be held for future generations and can avoid being subject to estate taxation or to creditors of any future generation.

As an example, let’s take a look at a trust established by James. James’s trust would be set up for the benefit of Susan, their two children, Mark and Emily, and their three grandchildren. James would gift into this trust any remaining portion of his $5 million applicable exclusion not used up through other planning strategies. The year following the transfer of these assets into the trust, he would file Form 709 to report the gift. In addition, he would allocate his GST exemption (currently $5 million) to the trust.

Each year James would contribute annual exclusion gifts for Mark, Emily, and the three grandchildren. Of course, the trust would be drafted so that additional grandchildren would also be included as beneficiaries and Crummey power holders.

Let’s assume James gifts $3,000,000 worth of assets into the trust plus the maximum annual exclusion gift each year during his life expectancy.

Assuming a 4% rate of return, the $3,000,000 initial gift to will grow to $7,998,000 during James’s 25-year life expectancy. With James in a 50% estate tax bracket, this results in tax savings of $3,999,000.

On to the annual exclusion gifts: with five beneficiaries at $13,000 each, that’s $65,000 in annual gifting. These annual exclusion gifts will grow to $2,812,000 during James’s 25-year life expectancy, again assuming a 4% rate of return. This results in a tax savings of $1,546,600 (without the use of the applicable exclusion).

Between the $3,000,000 initially transferred into the trust and the annual exclusion gifts added each year, the assets in the irrevocable trust at James’s death will have grown to $10,810,000. This results in an ultimate tax savings of $5,545,600 – and this is only the view from James’s side of the fence. Remember, we can set up a separate irrevocable trust for Susan!

In my next post, we’ll look at an additional strategy James and Susan can use to transfer wealth out of their taxable estate and ensure that it makes its way to their children.

Stephen C. Hartnett
Associate Director of Education
American Academy of Estate Planning Attorneys, Inc.
6050 Santo Rd Ste 240
San Diego, CA 92124
858-453-2128
www.aaepa.com

Weddings plus funerals equal family stress. Whether the event is happy or sad, planned for months or just days, you can bet someone will melt down.

July 23, 1983, my first wedding took place on a hot, muggy evening in the garden of an elegant mansion. My father proudly escorted me down the steps. I wore my aunt’s white wedding dress, which had an antebellum hoop skirt that took up a lot of space.

A full moon rose in the east as my groom Bob and I stood before the only rabbi we could find in Washington D.C. who would marry a Catholic and a Jew. The rabbi had Parkinson’s disease, and over the course of the short ceremony, he shook and stuttered so badly I wasn’t sure he’d finish.

The reception in the mansion featured a cool jazz trio and waiters passing trays holding pigs-in-a-blanket and mini-quiches. I tossed the bouquet while standing on the grand staircase. Bob and I made a memorable exit wearing electric blue jumpsuits and futuristic sunglasses. It was the Eighties, after all.

How we had planned! The creamy white invitations with a raised flower motif had been mailed out months before. We had silk flower arrangements and potted palms. We found the shaking rabbi to conduct the ceremony.

There was so much to decide: What caterer to use? What to serve? Photography! Transportation! Attendants! Flowers! Outfits!

Meltdown number one was the day before the wedding. I was having my nails done at the beauty parlor. The manicurist made some benign comment. Suddenly, I burst into tears. The pressure was just too much.

The marriage lasted five years.

Fast forward to December 27, 2000. A thin crescent moon hung over the last glow of sunset as family and friends gathered at Congregation Albert synagogue. On the seventh night of Hanukkah, Dave and I had a Jewish Western wedding.

Dave proposed on the Fourth of July. We made all the arrangements in six months. Secured the date with the rabbi. Got an Old West portrait for the invitation. Bought styling Western outfits.

The wedding started late. We waited in the rabbi’s office for Dave’s father, Norm, who had run home to change his “itchy” shirt.

Dave and I walked down the aisle together. I wore a red dress with a black fringed and beaded jacket and red-and-black cowboy boots. We invited the guests to wear Western attire, and they responded with gusto. Even the rabbi wore boots and a bolo tie.

The reception was a barbeque buffet held in a converted barn with sawdust on the floor. A Western swing band provided the entertainment, with recorded Jewish dancing music during their breaks. Dave’s artistic mother Myra hand-painted more than two-dozen ceramic cowboy boots for centerpieces. Everyone said it was the most fun they’d had at any wedding.

Dave had meltdown number two. We woke up the day before the wedding to see six inches of snow had fallen. Albuquerque was paralyzed. The synagogue called to say they were closed that day. No rehearsal – although we did have a rehearsal dinner. No setting up the wedding canopy. Everything had to be done the morning of the wedding.

Dave turned very red and complained, “How can they do this? We’ve got to get set up! There’s no time!”

I pointed out the roads were treacherous and sent him out to shovel the walk. There’s a good reason weddings are held in June.

Seven years later, Dave’s father died. Norm was 82 when he fell and broke his hip. After seven weeks of hospitalizations, he succumbed to pneumonia.

I pulled out my wedding contact list to call Dave’s relatives the day before Norm died. The end was near. Close family and friends flew in on short notice.

Dave and I had pre-planned his father’s funeral three years before. Norm wanted a plain wooden casket. Jewish tradition calls for simplicity in funerals – no flowers. Charitable contributions were requested to the Jane Goodall Foundation. Myra provided a soft cotton tracksuit, so Norm could rest in something that wouldn’t be “itchy.”

We already knew what we wanted for a program, where the service would be held, and who would conduct it. We decided we didn’t need a limo. In our exhaustion, we wrote just a short obituary to announce the funeral.

In the rabbi’s office before the funeral, our family tore black mourning ribbons and pinned them to our clothes. The rabbi told us how the event would unfold. We lined up outside the sanctuary. There are no rehearsals for funerals.

Meltdown number three came from Dave’s brother Steven. At the last minute, Steven wanted his wife to walk in next to him. There was a scramble of rearranging. In the end, the two sons escorted their mother. The two daughters-in-law walked in together behind them.

Weddings are stressful. Funerals are more stressful still. It helps to plan ahead. And in spite of the best-laid plans, you can bet – someone will melt down.

Gail Rubin is the author of A Good Goodbye: Funeral Planning for Those Who Don’t Plan to Die and The Family Plot Blog, TheFamilyPlot.wordpress.com. Listen to recent radio interviews with Gail at agoodgoodbye.com/news/radio-interviews.

Academy Guest Blogger
American Academy of Estate Planning Attorneys, Inc.
6050 Santo Rd Ste 240
San Diego, CA 92124
858-453-2128
www.aaepa.com

The world of social media tends to be relaxed and informal. This makes it a great way to build a sense of community and start a conversation with clients and potential clients. But the very informality that makes social media so powerful for building your practice can also get you in hot water, if you’re not careful. This is especially true if you’re accustomed to using Twitter or Facebook in your personal life.

You might have heard about the North Carolina judge who was reprimanded for “friending” an attorney on Facebook. The attorney was trying a case before the judge and the two exchanged comments about that case online. It seems they didn’t realize that communications don’t cease to be ex parte just because they take place in a social media setting instead of over the phone or on the courthouse steps.

And you are not the only person you need to be worried about. Online postings by employees on behalf of your firm can have negative consequences, too. These consequences can range from damage to your firm’s reputation all the way to serious liability.

The takeaway? Don’t forget that the rules of ethics apply to your actions in the online world, just like they apply in the physical world. Check your state’s ethics rules before launching any online marketing campaigns or venturing into unfamiliar social media territory. And make sure your practice has a social media policy that governs your employees’ online actions on behalf of your firm.

The world of online marketing can be an overwhelming one for attorneys. That’s why Sanford M. Fisch and I have collaborated on our soon-to-be-released book, Dominating Your Market. In it, we offer a blueprint for establishing a commanding internet presence for your firm, giving you all the tools you need to harness the unique power of the internet to position your firm as the source clients in your market seek out to meet their needs.

Robert Armstrong
President & Co-Founder
American Academy of Estate Planning Attorneys, Inc.
6050 Santo Rd Ste 240
San Diego, CA 92124
858-453-2128
www.aaepa.com

I just got back from New Orleans, the Crescent City, where the American Academy of Estate Planning Attorneys held its Spring Summit conference. Everyone had a wonderful time, though the 8am sessions came a little early for those who had been out on Bourbon Street the night before!

I gave several presentations, including one on estate planning under the new, temporary TRA 2010. In this blog, I’ll give a brief overview of what TRA 2010 does and then look at the fact pattern we examined. In the next two blogs I’ll go over some of the strategies that might work in this case.

2011 and 2012
In 2011 and 2012 the system for gift and estate taxes is (mostly) unified.

Gift Tax
For gift tax purposes, the “basic” exclusion stands at an unprecedented $5 million. In addition, the surviving spouse can use the predeceasing spouse’s “Deceased Spousal Unused Exclusion Amount” or “DSUEA.” In order for the surviving spouse to be able to use the DSUEA, an estate tax return must have been timely-filed for the pre-deceasing spouse.

Estate Tax
For estate tax purposes, the “basic” exclusion is also $5 million. The DSUEA is also available, but only for the last deceased spouse. There is a step-up in basis.

Generation Skipping Tax
For generation skipping tax (GST) purposes there is also $5 million exemption available to shield generation-skipping transfers. Note that, unlike the gift and estate tax, there is no portability of the deceased spouse’s unused GST exemption.

For gift tax, estate tax, and GST purposes, the rate for transfers in excess of the exclusions / exemptions is 35%.

2013 and beyond:
In 2013, TRA 2010 sunsets (with EGTRRA) and we revert to pre-2001 law. This means that the applicable exclusion reverts to $1 million. It may be used in life or at death. For GST purposes, there is a $1 million exemption, inflation-adjusted from the base year. For practical purposes, this means that the 2013 GST exemption is likely to be about $1.4 million.

Case Study:
It’s a beautiful spring morning, and new clients have just walked into your office. James and Susan are a married couple who met in college and spent the early years of their marriage growing a business alongside their family. Now in their late 50’s, their business is thriving, and James and Susan have a combined net worth of just under $20 million.

The timing couldn’t be better for James and Susan to do some serious estate planning, because of the new law. This may very well turn out to be a unique window of opportunity for high net worth clients, like them. In my next blog posts we’ll look at their assets in greater depth and look at some strategies that might work well for them to take advantage of this unique window of opportunity.

Stephen C. Hartnett, J.D., LL.M.
Associate Director of Education
American Academy of Estate Planning Attorneys, Inc.
6050 Santo Rd Ste 240
San Diego, CA 92124
858-453-2123
www.aaepa.com

Rep. Earl Blumenauer (D-Oregon) recently introduced legislation to provide reimbursement to doctors for voluntary, personal consultations with their Medicare and Medicaid patients around advance care planning. Mr. Blumenauer has proposed the Personalize Your Care Act of 2011, explaining that “voluntary benefits for advance care planning are the best way to ensure that our healthcare system respects the individual wishes of patients.”

The measure, H.R. 1589, would reimburse doctors for such voluntary conversations with patients every 5 years, or more frequently based on changes in health status or care setting.

The timing of this legislation is no accident. Introduced on April 15, it was intended as a show of support for National Healthcare Decisions Day, which is now held each April 16. As I’ve written here previously, the goal of this national initiative is to raise awareness about and encourage people to express their health care wishes through conversations and in written advance directives.

Rep. Blumenauer’s bill is similar to legislative language that he included in the health care reform bill passed by the House in 2009, but which was not included in the final version of the bill passed by Congress. That language became the basis for the charge of federal “death panels” by some opponents of the reform bill in 2009. In H.R. 1589, Rep. Blumenauer appears to be stressing the optional nature of this proposed benefit, using the word “voluntary” in the title of his press release.

This time, the measure appears to apply only to patients covered under Medicare and Medicaid. Under the health reform bill, the provision would have covered all persons who would enroll in health insurance plans operating through the newly-created health insurance exchanges.

The legislation, according to Rep. Blumenauer, also “provides grants to states to create Physician Orders for Life Sustaining Treatment (POLST) programs, allows portability of advance directives across states, and requires standards to include completed advance care planning documents within a patient’s electronic health record.”

Thus far, the bill has gotten very little press. It has been referred to the House Committees on Energy and Commerce and Ways and Means. If you would like to be apprised of future developments, please let me know.

Randi J. Siegel, MBA, is the President of DocuBank, the largest advance directive registry in the U.S., which ensures that the healthcare directives of its 175,000 enrollees are immediately available 24/7/365. Working with estate planning professionals since 1997, Randi frequently speaks at national estate planning conferences and has appeared on radio and television as an authority on registries. She is active in health policy pertaining to advance directives and serves as a Senior Fellow at the Jefferson School of Population Health in Philadelphia. Randi is an ongoing contributor to the Academy blog.

Academy Guest Blogger
American Academy of Estate Planning Attorneys, Inc.
6050 Santo Rd Ste 240
San Diego, CA 92124
858-453-2128
www.aaepa.com

So you’ve decided to make the leap to online marketing. If you do it right, this decision could be one of the best you’ll make. With a strong online presence, your law firm can interact powerfully with clients and potential clients, you can establish your authority and expertise among the people in your community, and you can become the go-to source for information and help when people in your city – or even your state – have a problem that falls into your practice area.

But, as with most other important endeavors, there’s a right way and a wrong way to proceed. Here are three don’ts that have the potential to derail your online marketing efforts and alienate the people you’re trying to reach:

1. Link Baiting. How many times have you been online, seen an intriguing headline, and clicked through only to find out that the article, blog post, or other content following the headline just doesn’t deliver as promised? This is called link baiting, and it can be a tempting way to increase traffic to your website or blog. However, it’s a huge no-no. There’s nothing wrong with catchy titles – as a matter of fact, they make for smart and effective marketing. However, it’s critical to make sure the article matches the content you’re providing. Otherwise, you’ll lose credibility and alienate potential clients.
2. Mousetrapping. You want visitors to stay on your website as long as possible, but you don’t want to use a technique called mousetrapping to accomplish this. Mousetrapping is the incredibly frustrating (and, in some cases, illegal) array of tricks that keep a user from navigating away from your site. Maybe you’ve experienced it… you visit a website, decide it’s time to move on, and all of a sudden, you’re faced with endless pop-ups or the same page keeps reloading over and over again. Not a good way to win over potential clients.
3. Keyword Overload. Don’t sacrifice your website or blog content on the altar of keyword density. Granted, search engine optimization (SEO) is important, but if the “right” keyword density makes an article or blog post repetitive, hard to follow, or downright nonsensical, you’ll drive away the very people you’re trying to win over. Remember, write for your reader.

The world of online marketing can be an overwhelming one for attorneys. That’s why Robert Armstrong and I have collaborated on our soon-to-be-released book, Dominating Your Market. In it, we offer a blueprint for establishing a commanding internet presence for your firm, giving you all the tools you need to harness the unique power of the internet to position your firm as the source clients in your market seek out to meet their needs.

Sanford M. Fisch
CEO & Co-Founder
American Academy of Estate Planning Attorneys, Inc.
6050 Santo Rd Ste 240
San Diego, CA 92124
858-453-2128
www.aaepa.com

I just finished analyzing the 2010 financials from over 60 law firms across the country. Most of those law firm submitted financials last year. I’m putting the finishing touches on the spreadsheet all of the Members review together in a closed meeting at every Spring Summit.

Interestingly, there are more law firms with an increase in revenue than law firms where the revenue went down!

I guess the bottom line is that it doesn’t matter how many law firms had increased revenue – what we find is that if “your” revenue was down the natural inclination is to figure out how to point to a cause at something—anything—other than what you have control over. The economy and the estate tax law change is a common chorus in that song.

A recent comment about the economy and the tax law change came up from an Academy Peak Performer and our Oklahoma City Member, also a co-founder and co-leader of the Academy Peak Performer group, Larry Parman responded to that Member with the following message.

You’ll love this! I know I did.

From: Larry Parman, Oklahoma City Estate Planning Attorney, Co-Founder of the Academy Peak Performers Training Program, National Speaker and Book Author
Sent: Monday, May 02, 2011 6:54 PM

First, an observation. As business owners our mission never changes – achieve pre-determined results through the efforts of ourselves and others. Our responsibility is to see outcomes are achieved regardless of what is going on in the economy, new competition, tax law change and so forth. As important, we must acknowledge we have little, if any control, over “outside.” To attribute outcomes to something other than our plans, policies or execution of them can lead to acceptance of mediocrity, and he always travels with his twin, “a reason.” Too often we allow “outside” to own our outcomes.

Second, a recommendation. Declining outcomes should trigger “inside” re-evaluation. When we find ourselves thinking, feeling, believing, that our outcomes are due to the economy or another nefarious outside source, reject that reasoning. Our task remains the same regardless of outside circumstances, namely to set and hit goals.

If a strategy is not effective, for whatever reason, we should think opportunity, immediately dissect our strategies to see if they can withstand marketplace vagaries. Our public seminar strategy shines as example. Those critters are the siren song of the estate planning lawyer’s easy street – seductive, voluptuous… a very attractive creature… quick money from prospects riding by on the Easy Street trolley. As long as they work.

They will decide to take a month or two… god forbid… a year off, sometimes forever. It happens and the Academy is full of Members who have lived to tell the story, myself included.

Once we are clear that we alone create outcomes, the first step is to inoculate against marketplace ebbs and flows. Why would any of us allow our business to be dependent upon one primary lead generation strategy? Too often it happens because adding to reliable revenue streams is hard work. Few are willing.

Perhaps the most challenging thing as a business owner is to abandon long held belief as truth. Why not test our beliefs to see if our business is profitable assuming our beliefs are wrong? The opportunity starts with accurate numbers, problem ID, self-analysis of your chain of lead generation, followed by course correction.

All the items described are an opportunity to revise, enhance and improve for better outcomes. If tax message is not working, change seminar emphasis (our seminars haven’t mentioned much about estate tax for nearly 10 years).

It’s not out there. It’s in here, where opportunity resides.

About the author: Mr. Parman is a frequent guest on the radio and can be seen on television talk shows explaining the importance of proper estate planning. Prosperity Productions selected Mr. Parman is a featured speaker in a nationally-recognized educational video on Living Trusts. He is the author of numerous published articles on financial and estate planning matters and the co-author of two books, Estate Planning Basics: A Crash Course in Safeguarding Your Legacy and Guiding Those Left Behind in Oklahoma: Settling the Affairs of Your Loved Ones.

Mr. Parman is a Member and Fellow of the American Academy of Estate Planning Attorneys. He is also a member of the Oklahoma and Missouri Bar Associations, the American Bar Association, and the Oklahoma City Estate Planning Council.

Jennifer Price
Director of Member Services
American Academy of Estate Planning Attorneys, Inc.
6050 Santo Rd Ste 240
San Diego, CA 92124
858-453-2128
www.aaepa.com

Every advertising medium has natural advantages and inherent limitations. Let’s talk about two of the most popular; newspaper ads and direct mail. Consider newspaper if you are selling to a general market, because newspapers are generally bought by all segments of the population. Direct mail can be an easy and relatively inexpensive method of selling your products or services and every business has the potential to increase their profits through the intelligent use of direct mail advertising. Let’s look at both of them a little more closely.

Direct Mail Benefits

• Can personalize each piece to the recipient

• Can target a very specific demographic, such as Age, Income, Net worth, Homeowners

• Can create interest immediately to get the prospect to open (if done properly, a good direct mail piece should land in the 3^rd pile of mail… 1^st pile is garbage i.e. credit card offers, large glossy Bed Bath and Beyond type mail, etc; 2^nd pile is bills, and the 3^rd pile is any cards, letters, and stuff you’re not really sure of, but will plan to open)

• Can enclose tickets to the event, in addition to the letter; which can increase attendance

• Each letter campaign gives you the ability to precisely track your return on investment. This way you know to the penny whether or not your marketing plan is working

Having a long term, well thought out marketing plan for Direct Mail can be highly profitable as CONSISTENCY is the key. You don’t really see a Billboard on the Interstate up for one or two days… It’s up for a month or two or longer! As with most forms of marketing, there are ebbs and flows; not every single direct mail campaign is going to blow the doors off – stick with it and continue to market consistently and you’ll see tremendous results. The more you stay in front of prospects the better! Also keep in mind, your piece is competing with dozens of other pieces for attention. If it’s your first time using direct mail or you haven’t achieved the results you desire, make sure you use the experts or it could be a waste of money.

Newspaper Benefits

• You can reach certain socio-segments of your market by placing your ads in different sections of the paper such as: sports, comics, crosswords, news, classifieds, etc

• The newspaper offers a predictable frequency of publication: once, twice or up to seven times a week

• An advertiser has flexibility in terms of ad size and placement

• Newspapers can allow for reaching certain neighborhoods or living communities, as most will have a smaller circulation or neighborhood paper

Something to consider… Any given advertising message must compete for the reader’s attention. The paper may contain hundreds of ads, as well as dozens of articles and features for the reader to wade through. If the total time spent scanning a newspaper is only 20 minutes, your ad may not be noticed by a significant number of people. You also have no assurance that every person who receives the newspaper will read your ad or will open an elegant looking piece of mail. They may not read the section you advertised in, or they may simply have skipped the page because it contained little or nothing else of interest.

No matter where you advertise, always coordinate your efforts with other methods to significantly increase your return. And, ALWAYS diligently test and track your campaigns.

Happy Marketing!

Jorge Villar is President of Response Mail Express (RME), with more than 26 years of direct marketing experience, he is known in several industries for his ability to create mail packages that garner the highest response rates. He is responsible for the Seminar Success program that, for the last 17 years has accounted for more than 65% of the events being held in the nation with over 14 million individuals making reservations. Mr. Villar has also been very successful marketing to physicians and business owners regarding Success Planning and Asset Protection. Response Mail Express, and parent company DME, is a $100+ million marketing powerhouse, housing over 600 employees in their 2 state-of-the-art facilities in Florida. Their marketing ideas are presently being utilized by over 10,000 clients, including: top producing advisors, estate planning attorneys, large financial organizations, health care organizations, universities and many other industries. Mr. Villar is a frequent key note speaker at national financial symposium and training conferences.

Academy Guest Blogger
American Academy of Estate Planning Attorneys, Inc.
6050 Santo Rd Ste 240
San Diego, CA 92124
858-453-2128
www.aaepa.com