The art of the follow-up: how to chase a prospect without being annoying

Ten days ago a planner asked for a proposal for a seated dinner of 120. You sent it the same afternoon. Since then, nothing at all. No reply, no call back, not even an out-of-office. The tempting move is a one-line "just checking in", and that is exactly the message that gets deleted.

Following up without being annoying comes down to four decisions: a pace the planner could predict if they thought about it (roughly day 2, day 5, day 10, then a clean exit around day 15), one new piece of information in every message, a change of channel when email stops working, and an end date you have written down before you start. This article works through each of them, with the phone script and the three emails rewritten for a venue rather than a software company.

What silence actually means

Silence is rarely a no. On the venues we work with, an organiser is usually comparing three to five spaces at the same time, and your proposal is one tab among several. The person who wrote to you is often not the person who signs: a marketing manager waits for a director, an executive assistant waits for the board, a bride waits for her parents. And sometimes your email simply landed on a Friday afternoon and got buried under Monday.

None of those situations is helped by "did you receive my quote?". All of them are helped by something that moves the decision forward: a floor plan, a menu option, a date held for a few days, a straight answer on a fee.

Speed matters before the first follow-up even exists. In their Harvard Business Review study The Short Life of Online Sales Leads (Oldroyd, McElheran and Elkington, March 2011), the authors concluded that most companies do not respond to online enquiries nearly fast enough. Our working rule for venues is a first answer within the hour during business hours, and never later than the next day. A quote sent in week two is already competing against three others that arrived in week one.

A cadence you can defend

The pace below is the one we see hold up best on event quotes. It is deliberately short. Four touches over roughly two weeks, then you stop, and you tell the planner you are stopping.

Two public datasets support the idea that a second and third message are worth sending. Yesware's own data shows that when a first email gets no reply, the second still has a 21% chance of a response, and the company recommends waiting about 48 hours before sending it. Backlinko's analysis of 12 million outreach emails, run with Pitchbox, found that a single additional follow-up lifted replies by 65.8%, and that emailing the same contact several times roughly doubled the response rate.

Read those numbers with care. Both studies measured cold outreach to strangers, where the baseline reply rate was 8.5%. A planner who sent you their date, headcount and budget is a far warmer audience, which is why three follow-ups are plenty here. Yesware's finding that six touches over three weeks work best applies to cold sales, not to someone who asked for your price. Six chasers on a wedding enquiry reads as pressure.

The templates, rewritten for a venue

Keep them short. Boomerang analysed the emails its users had asked to be reminded about, 40 million of them, and found that messages of 50 to 125 words had reply rates above 50%, that one to three questions beat none, and that subject lines of three or four words got the most responses. Every template below fits inside those limits. Replace the brackets, delete anything that does not apply, and never send two of them on the same day.

Day 2: the call, then the note

Phone comes first. You are checking the proposal arrived and asking one open question. If they pick up:

Hi [first name], it's [your name] from [venue]. I sent over the proposal for your [event type] on [date] a couple of days ago. Did it come through all right, and is there anything in it you'd like me to change?

If it goes to voicemail, leave a ten-second message and send this:

Subject: Your [event type] proposal

Hi [first name], I tried you by phone a moment ago. I wanted to check the proposal for [date] reached you and see whether the layout, timings or catering need adjusting. Happy to rework any of it. You can reach me on [phone] or pick a time here: [link].

Day 5: give them something to look at

No question about their decision. Just something new, ideally tied to what they told you in the enquiry.

Subject: How the room looked for a similar dinner

Hi [first name], we hosted a [event type] for [number] guests last month in the same configuration I proposed for you, so I've attached three photos and the floor plan. It should give you a clearer picture than the PDF. If it helps to walk the space, I have [two time slots] free this week.

Day 10: the honest availability note

This is the touch venues get wrong most often. Manufactured urgency is easy to spot and expensive when it is discovered. Send this only if another enquiry for the date genuinely exists.

Subject: [date] availability

Hi [first name], we've had a second enquiry for [date]. Your slot is still yours for now, and I'd rather tell you than let it go quietly. If the project is still live, I can hold the date for five working days while you confirm internally. If it has moved, a quick reply saying so is fine.

Day 15: close the file, kindly

You are asking for a decision and releasing the hold. This message gets replies more often than any other in the sequence, sometimes weeks later.

Subject: Closing your [date] file?

Hi [first name], I haven't heard back about [date], so I'll assume the plans have changed and release the date on our side. No hard feelings at all. If the event comes back around, reply to this thread and we'll pick up where we left off.

What the law says about chasing a quote

A follow-up on a proposal the planner asked for is ordinary business correspondence, and nobody is going to fine you for a second email. The rules start to matter at the edges: when you keep writing after a "no", when you add the contact to a newsletter, and when the planner is a private individual rather than a company. Two texts cover most English-speaking venues.

• In the United States, the FTC's CAN-SPAM compliance guide applies to any message whose primary purpose is commercial, business-to-business email included. Subject lines must be accurate, the message must carry your physical postal address, and an opt-out request must be honoured within ten business days. Each email in violation can cost up to $53,088.
• In the UK, the ICO's guidance on electronic mail marketing under PECR says you may not send marketing email to individuals without consent, with a "soft opt-in" for people who bought or negotiated to buy from you. Corporate contacts can be emailed, but the ICO recommends keeping a do-not-email list of anyone who objects.

In practice: a couple planning a wedding is an individual, a corporate events manager is not. Keep your subject lines literal, sign with your venue's address, and when someone says stop, stop and record it. Continuing a "cadence" past that point is the one thing in this article that is both annoying and unlawful.

When to let go

Stop after the day-15 email. Not after the fourth unanswered email, not after the third voicemail, after the exit message. Silence at that point is an answer, and the planner will remember that you respected it for far longer than they will remember your ceiling height.

Stop earlier if any of these appear:

• They tell you they have booked elsewhere. Thank them, ask nothing, wish them a good event.
• They ask you to stop writing. That is a legal instruction as much as a social one.
• The date has passed, or the event has been cancelled publicly.

Do not confuse "too expensive" with "no". A price objection is a conversation. Ask for the range they are working with, then move one variable: guest count, hours, the bar package, a weekday instead of a Saturday. A planner who says "we're still thinking" needs a smaller next step than "sign here": a site visit, a call with the chef, a revised floor plan. And when they compare you with another venue, name what is different about yours in one sentence and leave the other venue out of it.

Keeping the sequence going without sounding like a machine

The part worth automating is the reminder, never the wording. Most teams lose follow-ups because the reminder lives in someone's head, and that someone is setting up a room. Set the four dates the moment the quote goes out, attach them to the event record so the notes from the enquiry call are one click away, and let your CRM nudge you rather than the other way round. In Joinways the reminders are created when the quote is sent; the emails themselves are yours to write. After a quarter, your reports will tell you which touch actually brought the replies. For most venues it is the day-2 call and the day-15 exit. Adjust from there.