How to Follow Up With Brands After Pitching (Templates)

Follow up once after about three to five business days, again around day seven with something new, and send a short close-out message by day 14. Reply in the same thread, keep each message under five lines, and never resend the original pitch. If there is still no answer after the close-out, move on and pitch that brand again in a few months with fresh samples.

That is the whole system. The rest of this guide gives you the exact messages for each day, the reasoning behind the timing, and the mistakes that make a follow-up sound pushy.

Why brands don't reply to your pitch

Silence after a pitch almost never means no. Brand inboxes are crowded, and the person reading yours is usually handling several jobs at once: running campaigns, answering agencies, approving ads, and chasing their own deadlines. Your email gets opened on a Tuesday, flagged for later, and buried by Thursday.

The usual reasons a pitch goes unanswered:

• It landed at a bad moment. A launch, a quarter-end or a holiday week pushes everything else down the list.
• It reached the wrong person. The inbox you found may belong to support or a generalist who never forwarded it.
• It needs a decision they are not ready to make. Budget is not approved yet, or the campaign brief is still being written.
• It was easy to ignore. A long email with no clear ask is easy to put off. A short one with one question is easy to answer.

Only the last one is in your control, and it is the one a follow-up fixes. A good follow-up is not a complaint that they ignored you. It is a second, easier chance to say yes.

How many follow-ups is the right number?

Advice varies, but most creator-side guides land in the same place. Sources suggest waiting roughly five to seven business days before the first follow-up, while Heepsy's guidance is three to five. Heepsy also recommends keeping the total to two or three messages. Past that, you stop being persistent and start being noise.

The schedule below sits inside that range. Day 3 and day 7 are follow-ups. Day 14 is the close-out. Three touches after the pitch, then you stop. If a brand has told you they are slow to reply, or you pitched in a holiday week, stretch the gaps rather than adding messages.

The follow-up schedule at a glance

• Day 0: Send the pitch. One specific idea, one ask, link to your best work.
• Day 3: A one-line bump in the same thread.
• Day 7: A second message that adds something new: a fresh angle, a recent result or a better sample.
• Day 14: The close-out. A polite yes/no question that makes replying effortless.
• After day 14: Stop. Note the date and pitch again in about three months.

If you send on a Friday, count business days, not calendar days. A bump that lands on a Saturday gets read on Monday alongside everything else.

Day 3 template: the one-line bump

The first follow-up should take the reader three seconds. It does one job: float your original email back to the top of the inbox. Reply inside the original thread so they can see the pitch directly beneath your note without hunting for it.

Subject: Re: (keep the original subject line)

"Hi Priya, bumping this up in case it got buried. Still keen to film the cold brew idea for your launch. Happy to send a rough storyboard if that helps."

Why it works: it is short, it names the specific idea, and it offers one small next step. It does not say "just checking in" and it does not apologise for writing.

Day 7 template: add something new

By day seven a plain bump starts to look like nagging. This message needs a reason to exist. Give the reader something they did not have in your first email. That could be a second hook idea, a result from a recent post, or a sample you made since.

"Hi Priya, one more thought on the cold brew idea. I had a second hook for it: 'three ways I stopped buying coffee on my commute.' Here is a 20-second draft of it filmed on my phone: [link]. Happy to film both versions if you are interested."

A few options for what to add:

• A new content idea written specifically for one of their products.
• A recent post of yours that performed well, with the numbers you can share honestly.
• A short sample video using their product or a close equivalent.
• A change in your situation, such as a new audience milestone or a recently finished brand project.

This is also the message that separates a real pitch from a mass blast. It shows you are thinking about their product, not just asking for a slot. If you need a refresher on building the original pitch and your media kit, our guide to how to get brand deals walks through it.

Day 14 template: the close-out message

The last message is different. You are no longer asking for the deal. You are asking whether to stop. People who ignore a pitch will often answer a plain yes/no question, because it takes five seconds and carries no pressure.

"Hi Priya, I know things get busy. Should I close the loop on this one? No worries either way. If the timing is better later in the year, I am happy to reconnect then."

This closes the thread politely, leaves the door open, and often gets the quickest answer of the whole sequence. A "not right now" is still a reply, and it tells you when to try again.

Should you follow up by email or DM?

Use the channel you pitched on first. If you emailed, follow up by email in the same thread. If you pitched through a DM, follow up in the DM. Switching channels mid-sequence is fine when it is a deliberate extra touch, but do not send the same message on both the same day.

If you do add the other channel, make the contact feel natural. Some guides, including Fluxnote's, suggest engaging with the brand's posts for a few days before sending a follow-up DM, so your name is familiar when the message arrives. Leave a real comment, not an emoji.

A DM version of the day 3 bump: "Hey! Sent an email to your partnerships team about a short video idea for [product]. Wanted to say hi here too. Happy to share the details if useful."

What not to do when you follow up

• Do not resend the original pitch. If the first email did not get a reply, copying it again will not either.
• Do not write "per my last email." It reads as irritated, and irritation loses deals.
• Do not send more than three messages. Two or three is the common ceiling in creator guides. A fourth message is where polite becomes pushy.
• Do not follow up daily. Spacing is what makes each message feel like a courtesy.
• Do not guilt the brand. Phrases like "I have been waiting" give them a reason to say no.
• Do not attach new files. Link to samples instead. Attachments get filtered and slow the reader down.
• Do not treat an open as interest. Tracking pixels tell you the email was opened, not that anyone intends to answer it.

A simple way to track every pitch

Follow-ups fail mostly because of bookkeeping. You send eight pitches in one week, and by the time day 7 arrives you have forgotten which ones need a second message. A basic tracker fixes that. Use whatever you already open daily, and log five things for each pitch:

1. Brand and contact name. So every message starts with a real person's name.
2. Channel and date sent. The day 0 anchor for the whole schedule.
3. Next follow-up date. Day 3, day 7 and day 14 filled in at the moment you send.
4. The angle you pitched. So the day 7 message adds something genuinely different.
5. Outcome. Replied, declined, not now, or closed, with a re-pitch date.

Once you have the dates written down, the follow-up becomes a daily five-minute task instead of something you remember at random. Elev8or Collabs is built to manage brand collaborations in one place, so open threads are easier to keep track of.

What to do when a brand replies

Replies are not all yes. Expect a few kinds:

• "Yes, send details": reply the same day with your rates, deliverables and a suggested timeline.
• "Not right now": thank them, ask when to check back, and put that date in your tracker.
• "We work with an agency": ask for the agency contact and keep the reply short.
• "No budget, but we can send product": decide in advance what free product is worth to you, and when you would accept it. Our UGC rate card can help you set that line.

Whatever the answer, respond quickly. A creator who follows up well and then takes three days to answer a reply wastes the goodwill the sequence earned.

When to move on

After the day 14 message, stop. Mark the pitch closed in your tracker with a date about three months out. Moving on does not mean the brand is gone for good. Budgets reset, campaigns change, and the person who ignored you may have left.

When you pitch again, do not mention the earlier silence. Start fresh with new samples, a new idea and a short, specific ask. Use the time between pitches to improve the thing brands actually judge: your best three pieces of content and how clearly you explain what you would make for them.

Move on earlier if the brand clearly signals no interest, if the contact asks you to stop, or if you find out the pitch went to the wrong person and a better contact exists. In that case, send one fresh pitch to the right person instead of continuing the sequence.

A full example sequence

Here is how it looks start to finish for a small food creator pitching a coffee brand:

1. Day 0: Pitch for a 20-second Reel showing three cheap swaps for a daily coffee run, built around the brand's new cold brew can.
2. Day 3: "Hi Priya, bumping this up. Still keen to film the cold brew idea."
3. Day 7: "Had a second hook for you: 'three ways I stopped buying coffee on my commute.' Draft attached as a link. Happy to film both."
4. Day 14: "Should I close the loop on this one? No worries either way."
5. Day 90: Fresh pitch with new samples and an idea tied to their seasonal product.

Every message is under five lines. Every message gives the reader a reason to answer and a single easy way to do it. That is all a follow-up needs to be.

Will following up make you look desperate?

The most common worry is sounding desperate. Persistence reads as professional when each message is short, polite and new. Desperation shows up as length, repetition and pressure, none of which are in these templates. Send the schedule as written and you will be fine.