Tricia Toker is a fabulous senior photographer in Atlanta and is guest blogging today!  She shares her thoughts on Welcome Packets for seniors and gives you a look at what is inside hers!!  Thanks so much for sharing this with Seniorologie readers Tricia!!!

If you are a senior photographer, actually if you are a photographer period, you really should have a welcome kit or at the very least, a magazine.

How many times have you answered the same questions over and over with each new inquiry? The welcome magazine and / or the welcome kit is the perfect way to not only inform your clients of what you offer, but also to help keep you sane by not having to retype or copy/paste your responses with each inquiry.

I cannot take credit for this idea at all. Welcome magazines and kit templates are everywhere and with good reason. They are incredibly helpful, but at the same time, they can be a lot of work. If you’ve ever created your own, I know you feel my pain. If you are a creative though, you might enjoy the process of creating yours. If you’d rather focus your creativity on your images though, do yourself a favor and invest in some time saving templates. For my own kit, I prefer a mix of my own pieces and using purchased templates. I also prefer templates that have a lot of flexibility, because I like to change things up so my welcome magazine doesn’t look identical to the photographer’s magazine down the street or in the next town. With most of the templates, I either add in pages, combine templates or even change the layouts. All of this is to keep my kit more unique to myself.

A few years ago, my welcome kit consisted of a custom folder including a printed version of my senior magazine (8 1/2 x 11), a cropping guide, a copy of the client agreement, business cards, and one sheet with some handy tips. It wasn’t bad, because it included all the important details for the client, but it didn’t wow me. Until that point, I didn’t even see any templates that really wowed me either, so I continued with this same format for the last several years. This year, I decided that I needed more, but the beauty of this was that I really didn’t need to do much more work. I had already updated my senior magazine (which is the biggest, most time consuming element), but after that, everything else was pretty much deconstructing my magazine into smaller, more condensed elements for the welcome kit. While I’m including all the same details from the senior magazine, it’s now printed in several pieces instead of essentially one magazine.

The other reason that I wanted to do this is because the cost of the magazine can get pricey depending on how many pages your magazine is. This year when I redid my senior magazine, I included more information, more images and that also meant more pages. I should also mention that I do email all clients the full digital version of the magazine, but just no longer include the full printed version of the magazine in the welcome kit. Instead, I have taken out the most important pieces: pricing / products, what to wear, getting ready for your session, etc., and made those their own separate elements in the welcome kit. Again, I’m not claiming to have invented these ideas, because many other photographers do this as well, but I do see the value in it and have adapted my welcome magazine and kit as a result.

If you’re worried that you cannot possibly find the time to make your own kits or feel you are lacking the creativity to make your own, there’s so many resources these days for templates. Regardless of the route you go with your welcome kits and magazine, it will be well worth the time you put into it. Not only is it the perfect way to get every detail to your client about their upcoming session, but it’s a very professional way to present all of this information. This alone should help set you apart from the competition.

Tricia Toker

Tricia Toker Photography Atlanta, Georgia

Email:  triciatoker@gmail.com

Website:  http://triciatokerphotography.com

Instagram:  https://instagram.com/triciatoker

Facebook:  https://www.facebook.com/triciatokerphotography