You sent the pitch eleven days ago. Nothing.
Two instincts fight here, and both are wrong. One says send nothing, because chasing looks desperate. The other says send something every few days until they answer.
The first loses work you'd have won. The second loses the relationship. The pattern that works sits between them, and it has a shape.
Why they haven't replied
Almost never because the pitch was bad. Far more often:
- The decision needs someone who's away
- The budget isn't approved yet
- Three other things got more urgent this week
- They're waiting on two more pitches before comparing
None of those are about you, and none of them are helped by another "just checking in".
The pattern
Two follow-ups. Each carrying something new. Then release the date and move on.
That's it. The rest is what "something new" means.
Follow-up one: about a week later
A week is long enough not to crowd them and short enough that the pitch is still in recent memory.
The rule that changes everything: give the message a reason to exist that isn't your need for an answer.
- A reference you found afterwards that fits the approach
- A thought about the hard part of the brief you've had since sending
- Something genuinely relevant: a competitor's launch, a format that's working in their category
"Been thinking about the workshop sequence. If the light in there is as directional as it looked in your photos, shooting late afternoon would do most of the work for us. No pressure on timing, just wanted to pass it on."
You've demonstrated you're still engaged with their problem rather than with your invoice, and you've given them an easy, low-stakes thing to reply to.
Follow-up two: the date release
Around two weeks after the first, and this one carries the operationally useful information.
"I've got another enquiry for that week, so I wanted to check in before I let the dates go. Happy to hold until Friday if it's still live. Otherwise no problem at all, just let me know."
Three things make this work:
It's true. Never invent the other enquiry. It's a small lie that's easy to get caught in and it poisons everything after it.
It creates a real decision without manufacturing pressure. You're not asking them to hurry; you're telling them a fact about your calendar.
It gives them an easy no. Counter-intuitively, this is what makes it convert: an out makes the yes feel voluntary rather than extracted.
Then stop
After two, stop.
A third chase converts a "not now" into a "not you". People remember being chased far longer than they remember being pitched, and the cost is the next brief as well as this one.
Stopping isn't giving up. It's moving the relationship to a longer clock.
What to send instead of a third chase
Nothing, for a while. Then, months later, something with no ask attached: a piece of work in their category, a genuinely useful observation. No "circling back", no reference to the old pitch.
Reconnecting with something valuable and no request is how dormant leads reopen. Reconnecting with a fourth follow-up is how they close permanently.
Once you're actually engaged, the rules change
Everything above is for the pre-money phase, where politeness is the constraint and the stakes are low.
The moment they've hired you, silence stops being a courtesy question and becomes a scheduling and cash-flow problem, with a different, firmer ladder and real consequences attached. That's covered in when a client goes quiet.
Don't apply pre-money manners to a project that's already running. Holding edit days indefinitely while being gently polite is how freelancers lose money being nice.
Where Acumin fits
Pitches sent through Pitch Studio record whether they were opened and what the response was. That's a modest thing that changes the follow-up decision quite a lot: an unopened pitch and a pitch read three times are different situations, and the second is worth a follow-up the first probably isn't.
Over time it also tells you something more useful than any individual outcome: which of your pitches get read to the end, and which lose people early.
How to use this tomorrow
Look at your oldest unanswered pitch. Has it had one follow-up, two, or none?
If none, write the first one now, and make yourself find the thing to put in it that isn't a request. That constraint is the entire technique.
Related: How to pitch a brand is what you're following up on. When a client goes quiet is the same problem after money is involved.