Brand Building | Designing a Well Rounded Welcome Packet - Megan Martin Creative | Education and Showit Website Templates for Digital Business Owners
Well Rounded Welcome Packet to Elevate your Client Experience on Megan Martin Creative, brand, brand design, ideal client, client communication

Brand Building | Designing a Well Rounded Welcome Packet

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You just booked a new client! YAY!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! First, let’s celebrate! Second, SLOW your roll, girlfriend! I know the level of excitement that comes with a shiny new booking, but jumping head first into the creative fun is NOT what you should do first! Heading straight from the contract signed to step one of your creative service is a sure fire way to set yourself up for failure in the client experience department. Instead of getting straight to the work, you have to do a few critical steps to set yourself and your client up for a successful working relationship. Today I am going to teach you the basics of Designing a Well Rounded Welcome Packet to kick off your service in control and establish healthy expectations and boundaries for your clients. I promise they will LOVE you for it!

I am actually going to start just before the welcome packet, at the contract. I highly suggest you use some sort of online program for your contracts and signatures. I use Hellosign. They give you 3 free documents to go out for signatures each month. Other options include Echosign and more robust programs that take care of a slew of small business solutions like Honeybook. Whatever option you go with, allowing your client to sign their contracts electronically will start the process off right in the way of making the process easier for them. I know I hate having to print a document out to sign it by hand and then have to go through the process of scanning it in, finding the scanned file in my documents and then emailing it back to someone. It is the little things that make your client experience stand out from the rest!

*Back when I wrote this post, I wasn’t using a client relationship management tool like Honeybook. I no longer use a string of tools to run my client experience like Hellosign and etc. As my business grew, I realized that while free is nice, using too many tools is too much of a headache. Honeybook will save you time, money, and a lot of mistakes in the onboarding process!

Okay so now let’s move on to designing a welcome packet for after the dotted line has been signed! I am going to include things I have done in our Wedding Planner Welcome Packet, but also give some more general ideas for how to implement a well rounded welcome packet for your own creative small business, whatever that may be!

Ready to elevate your client experience from day one? Designing a well rounded Welcome Packet for your service based business is the key to a successful client relationship! On Megan Martin Creative, brand, branding, marketing, brand design, wedding planner welcome packet, ideal client, client communication, office policies, workflow, business tips, business strategy, how to grow your business

Designing your Client Welcome Packet on Megan Martin Creative

Packaging you Welcome Packet

Before we get into the packet let’s chat for a minute on the packaging. Packaging is just as important as what is inside! Think about how you feel when you go to open a beautifully wrapped present. It makes you feel elated, excited and anticipate the treasures inside. Now imagine I handed you a grocery bag filled with stuff and told you it was a gift. I would bet you would put a smile on your face, but you would really be thinking how odd it is that I “wrapped” it in a plastic bag and you just might expect something used. Ha!

Don’t let your welcome packet fall victim to unthoughtful and unattractive packaging. Make sure each element of your packaging blends well with your brand to get your client excited about their delivery from the start! I chose these classic crest white document folders to house our welcome information and tie them up with a coordinating black and white stripe ribbon and a custom “Welcome” tag in our brand font.

What to Include In Your Welcome Packet: Copy of the Contract

If you take my advice from above about electronic signatures, be sure to include a finalized copy of the contract once all signatures have been completed. My payment schedule is laid out in the contract so this is also a good way for them to see it on paper and schedule their payments into their calendars. I know it seems silly to take this step if you have an electronic contract process, but when it comes to big transactions, many people like to have the contract in paper form to review when needed.

Designing your Client Welcome Packet on Megan Martin Creative

What to Include In Your Welcome Packet: Thank You Card

I strongly urge you to include a handwritten thank you note. It will make the package feel personalized and thanking your clients for trusting you above the rest is huge! Make sure they know how grateful you are for their business and how excited you are to make it happen for them.

What to Include In Your Welcome Packet: Pre-Addressed and Stamped Envelopes

If you prefer to be paid via check, include pre-addressed envelopes with postage for your clients to easily send payments when stipulated by the contract. It goes back to making the process as easy as possible for your client. Not having to scour through old emails for your address will certainly make sending you money owed much more pleasant on their end!

Well Rounded Welcome Packet to Elevate your Client Experience on Megan Martin Creative, brand, brand design, ideal client, client communication

Designing your Client Welcome Packet on Megan Martin Creative

What to Include in your Welcome Packet: Social Connect Card

If you want them to follow you across your social mediums, ask them! Give them a card that lists all of the ways they can connect with you and get in touch when they need to. Mine includes my website address, phone number, and all social medium usernames so they can connect with MMC on their favorite social site.

What to Include in Your Welcome Packet: Office Policies Document

This is super important… for your sanity! If you don’t have office policies, stop what you are doing and go make some. Some important info to include in this document are:

Your contact information (including your address if you want them to send payment via check)

How to make out their checks to you

Office Hours – So they aren’t calling you at 10pm!

Meeting Rules – We require meetings be scheduled at least 72 hours in advance due to the need to set up care for kids. We also require that any meetings that need to be canceled be done so at least 24 hours in advance so we can plan accordingly. Also, touch on where you will be holding meetings!

Communication – We talk about how in order for us to do our job well, we need to establish open communication with both the client and anyone else the client may be working with. We can’t plan that which we don’t know!

Well Rounded Welcome Packet to Elevate your Client Experience on Megan Martin Creative, brand, brand design

Designing your Client Welcome Packet on Megan Martin Creative

What to Include in Your Welcome Packet: Preferred Vendors Card

This is specific to the wedding industry folk, but if you work with other professionals as a part of your service, I would suggest you include a card that lists out your favorite and most trusted providers. This isn’t just a list of everyone you know who offers things. This list is the cream of the crop and professionals you know will come through every. single. time. Your client will look to you for insight on who is the best in both quality and trust so don’t blow it with a referral you aren’t 1000% sure will do the job very well. We call these people our Fabulous Vendors because we love them so!

What to Include In Your Welcome Packet: Something unique to your service that feels like a gift!

For MMC Weddings, we created a custom paper planner to-do list insert for their wedding binder that covers everything we feel is important to focus on for the 12+ months leading up to the big wedding day and a few key things to do once it ends. We also took this custom to-do list and implemented it into our private client portal (but more on that another time!). We made sure to make it fun as well as extremely intentional to our planning process.

For other ideas I would say it depends on your specific industry, but a few that come to mind are: A wardrobe building guide for photo sessions for the photographer, a furniture arranging guide for an interior designer, a mad lib tailored to your specific service, an art print that they can hang on their wall, and etc. Make it something that makes them feel excited and ready to get started with you!

Extra – A little flair!

We sprinkle custom cut confetti into each and everything that gets sent to our clients! We realllllly love throwing confetti, y’all! This just reminds them that we believe the process of planning your wedding should be a celebration from Yes to I Do! And we always encourage popping some bubbly to make picking the details just a bit more sparkly 😉

Not into custom cutting confetti? Girl, I understand! I LOVE The Flair Exchange for confetti! And they do custom color mixes!

Custom Cut Confetti on Megan Martin Creative!

Megan Martin

There are tons of options and ideas that you could include in your Welcome Packet that is specific to your industry, but hopefully, this is a good guide to get you going for a client experience that starts off right!

What do you include in yours? I would love to hear your ideas!

Megan Martin

I'm a Mama of 4 who went from college drop out with zero biz savvy to building a 6-figure digital business on my own terms. I share the REAL bts of creating products, building a brand, and scaling for passive profit with courses, memberships, templates, downloads, and more.

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  1. This is so very helpful! I’ve been wanting to put something like this together; this will help for sure! Thanks for the inspiration!

  2. Kristen says:

    LOVE this!!! I’ve been looking for an envelope/clipboard/box combo thats cute, neat and cost effective – will be ordering these right away. Thank you for the inspiration! In my welcome packet, I also add a pen that has my logo on top. 🙂

  3. sheri says:

    I’d love to buy your forms! where did you get them?!?! This is awesome!

  4. Lea says:

    Love these! Wondering how you mailed these out? Did you place them in a box or a large bubble envelope? I’m currently putting something together for branding clients and trying to figure out the most cost effective way to mail them without them getting damaged in the mail!

  5. […] scenes content don’t always have to be something that has to do with a big launch. It can be your creative process for client-intake, or how you consistently come up with quality content for your tribe! When you share this type of […]

  6. Meghan says:

    Love these welcome package ideas! I’d love to hear more about how you use basecamp! We’ve used another planning site but with or rebrand we have been looking at other options, basecamp being one of them. Would love to hear about your experience!

  7. Lindsay says:

    I LOVE this! I just found it on Pinterest and can’t wait to put one of these together for my clients!

  8. […] scenes content don’t always have to be something that has to do with a big launch. It can be your creative process for client-intake, or how you consistently come up with quality content for your tribe! When you share this type of […]

  9. Sabrina says:

    I love these ideas! There are SO many ideas out there on pinterest, but I love that this really walks you through some ideas and must-haves! Your welcome packet looks so fun!

  10. Sarah Buckle says:

    Great blog post. literally sitting on my couch with notepad on a Saturday night brainstorming some ideas for a virtual welcome packet for clients of my recently launched Brand Styling biz!. You know what I’d love to ask you, you clever lady? How do you end your project with your valued clients? What do you include in your pack for finished client projects… besides a nasty old invoice or receipt??? Many thanks! Sarah Buckle , http://www.BoutikiDesign.com

    • Megan Martin says:

      Hi Sarah!

      Thank you so much for your sweet words! I plan to do a client gift post real soon so be on the look out! XO

  11. Totally making something like this for my personal training biz!

  12. […] loved the tips and branding advice in this […]

  13. Rebecca says:

    OMG! I have been searching for weeks now to try to find these type of envelopes to hold our welcome kit in without paying so much for the ones at Design Aglow (I LOVE their stuff but when you are just starting a business every penny saved is so needed!) and these are perfect! Cyber hug!!! ((((((( ))))))) Love your welcome kit it’s gorgeous! 🙂 Thank you for sharing!

  14. […] put in place for my new strategy intensive & social media mastery clients, having been prompted by this awesome post from Megan Martin about her welcome packet for wedding clients, and also a fantastic idea that my […]

  15. Jen says:

    Thanks so much for the inspiration Megan! I used this idea as a spring board for my own welcome packet and a blog post for my readers about why they should consider one and how to create it. I’ve included your post & packet for them to see, plus some cool packets from my clients and other businesses: http://jensmithsocialmedia.co.uk/welcome-new-clients-welcome-packet/ Jen x

  16. Thank you for this article. Gave me some ideas, and the graphics are beautiful!

  17. […] I created a digital Welcome Packet where I put everything I needed to know and everything the client needed to know before we started working together. Check out Megan Martin’s tutorial on creating a gorgeous physical Welcome Packet. […]

  18. […] I created a digital Welcome Packet where I put everything I needed to know and everything the client needed to know before we started working together. Check out Megan Martin’s tutorial on creating a gorgeous physical Welcome Packet. […]

  19. […] One of those posts that continues to pop up left and right was the how to breakdown of my client Welcome Packet back when I was planning weddings. Just the feature image of that post alone has been pinned on […]

  20. […] list and segment them for a special client welcome email series! You can use the same concept as a welcome packet but do it digitally through emails. Send them a special thank you email, your Office Policies in […]

  21. Kate Valasis says:

    This is super lovely! thanks for the post, has given me inspiration 🙂 x

  22. Cassie says:

    I just found your blog on Pinterest and have to say – you have a wonderful, BEAUTIFIL, inspiring blog and website! New (and excited) follower here!

  23. Omaira says:

    This is just amazing! I was looking for a design like this!
    Quick question, what is the best time to send this out to the client? Would you do it after the initial meeting to discuss the specifics and signing of the contracts?

  24. Sierra says:

    Great post!
    I love the idea of a welcome packet. I provide mobile text messaging service to various business owners, looking for other ideas to include in the packets. Like the pen idea with logo. Thank you

  25. Danny Lew says:

    Does anyone know where to go for a logo creation for brand awareness?

  26. Sally Jarjoura says:

    My company provides Destination Elopements & most of my clients come from outside of the country. It’s just not cost effective to mail everything. Any ideas on how to give it a personal feel when everything must be emailed?
    Thank you.

  27. Demetria says:

    This article is a godsend! Thank you so much for taking the time to share your knowledge and expertise!

  28. Sara says:

    The link to those envelopes is no longer available. Any chance you’d be willing to send an updated link to a similar envelope? Just curious to see exactly what you all are using!

    thank you!

  29. Shannon says:

    I am very impressed with this entire page and all the excellent information. Thank you so much for sharing Ms. Martin.
    SMILES

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