Marketing Digital Asset Planning as Part of a Modern Will

03 September 2026·5 min read

Quick answer: A modern will needs to account for digital assets — cryptocurrency, social media and content accounts, cloud storage, online businesses, loyalty points — not just the house and the car, and most wills firms are not marketing this angle even though it is a genuine, growing gap. Add a digital-assets conversation into your wills process, give clients a takeaway checklist before their appointment, and you improve the quality of the will itself and give your firm a distinct, modern point of difference. ✨

Most wills marketing is still stuck on a photo of an elderly couple, a set of house keys and a phrase like protecting your family's future. Meanwhile the real estate being planned for increasingly includes a crypto wallet, a business run entirely through an Instagram account, a photo library that means more emotionally than the furniture, and a stack of passwords nobody else in the family knows exist. We say this with 💖 because it is not that traditional estate planning content is wrong — it is that it has not caught up to how people actually live now, and firms that catch up first get to own a genuinely modern angle instead of competing on the same tired imagery as everyone else.

What most wills firms get wrong

Standard will questionnaires do not ask about digital assets at all, so they simply never come up
Marketing imagery and language stuck in traditional estate planning does not speak to younger clients who are actively building digital wealth right now
Assuming digital assets are niche or rare, when most people now hold some combination of crypto, an online business, a monetised social account, or subscriptions and loyalty points with real value attached
No process for capturing access information safely, without putting passwords literally inside a document that can become part of the public probate record — a genuine practical problem, not a hypothetical one

Client checklist: digital assets to think about before your appointment

Financial accounts and exchanges — any cryptocurrency, share-trading or digital wallet accounts, and who should be told they exist
Online businesses and domains — any website, online store, or domain names you own or operate
Social media and content accounts — accounts with followers, monetisation or content you would want preserved or closed
Cloud storage and photos — where your photos, videos and documents are stored, and who should have access
Email accounts — the account that other logins are recovered through, since it is often the master key to everything else
Subscriptions and loyalty points — memberships, airline points or accumulated rewards with real value
A note on access — rather than listing passwords here, consider a password manager and let your solicitor know who your nominated digital executor will be

Content creator client: a client with a monetised TikTok and Instagram following had never considered what should happen to those accounts. Sending the checklist ahead of the appointment meant the conversation about account continuity and content ownership happened properly, instead of being squeezed in as an afterthought.

Client holding cryptocurrency: the firm does not give tax or investment advice on the crypto holdings themselves, but the checklist surfaced that the client's family would not have known the wallet existed at all. That is a straightforward access-and-executor issue a wills firm can address directly, referring to a specialist for anything beyond that.

Online-only small business: an older client running an Etsy shop as a retirement side income had never thought about what happens to the domain, the account, or the years of customer reviews. The checklist turned it into a practical, plannable conversation rather than a gap nobody noticed until it was too late.

How to build this into your process and your marketing

Add a digital assets section to your intake questionnaire so it becomes a standard question, not a special case. Send the checklist ahead of the first appointment so clients arrive having already thought it through, instead of discovering gaps mid-meeting. Publish a short, plain-English explainer on your website to attract search traffic from people who are already wondering about this. Train staff on the access-without-disclosure problem — how to reference a password manager and a nominated digital executor rather than listing credentials inside the will itself. Position digital asset planning as part of what a modern will now includes, rather than a separate add-on product with its own price tag.

Please note: general information, not legal or tax advice — check current official guidance before relying on it.

💡 Recommend a password manager plus a named digital executor as the practical fix, rather than trying to solve access inside the will document itself — it keeps sensitive information out of a document that can become part of the public record.

Mistakes to avoid

Do not put actual passwords or login details inside the will itself
Do not give clients specific tax or legal advice on cryptocurrency — flag it and refer to a specialist where needed
Do not assume clients will raise this themselves — most do not realise it is relevant until they are asked directly
Do not let digital assets become a marketing buzzword with no actual process behind it in your intake or drafting

Frequently asked questions

Do digital assets need to be specifically named in the will?

This varies by asset type and by jurisdiction, and the guidance in this space continues to develop — it is genuinely worth checking current official advice for the client's specific situation rather than relying on a general rule.

Is cryptocurrency legally treated the same as other property?

Broadly it is treated as an asset of the estate, but the detail is complex and evolving, and this is an area where general wills advice should stop and a referral to a specialist in crypto or tax matters should start.

What about accounts that cannot legally be transferred, like some social media platforms?

Being honest about a real limitation here — some platforms' own terms of service restrict transfer or ongoing access even with proper legal authority behind the executor. It is worth telling clients this upfront so they are not over-promised on what can actually be recovered or continued.

Should every client get the checklist, or just younger, tech-focused clients?

Every client now, genuinely. Older clients are just as affected, usually through family photo libraries, email accounts and cloud storage rather than crypto or social media — do not assume it only applies to one age bracket.