Your Brand Deal Pipeline: Pitches, Replies and Follow-ups

Your brand pitches are sitting in six different places: two email threads, a DM you scrolled past, a note on your phone, and whatever you can still remember. Nothing tells you how many are out, which brand said they were keen and went quiet, or which one needed a nudge on Tuesday. So the outreach stops without you deciding to stop it, and next month starts from zero again.

The fix is one list and a habit. This guide builds your brand deal pipeline in a spreadsheet: six stages, what to record at each one, the follow-up rule, the three numbers worth reading, and a 15-minute weekly review. Nothing to buy, nothing to install, and you can start it today using the pitches you have already sent.

What is a brand deal pipeline?

A pipeline is a queue with labels: every opportunity in one list, each one marked with where it has got to. Yours covers the stretch of work before a brand says yes, from the first pitch to the agreed deal. Each brand sits in exactly one stage, every stage carries a date, and nothing sits in a stage without a next action attached to it.

Most of that queue is silence. Hunter analysed 31 million emails sent in 2025 and found the average reply rate across sequences was 4.5%, so about 19 in every 20 pitches go nowhere (Hunter). A pipeline does not lift that number by itself. It shows you where the number is being lost: at the pitch, at the reply, or at the quote.

This guide covers only the half before agreement. Once a brand says yes, the guide to keeping track of brand deals takes over with deliverables, payment status and usage dates. Keeping both in one sheet is how won rows drown out the pitches that still need chasing.

How do you set up the pipeline?

One sheet, seven columns: brand, contact, channel, date sent, stage, what they said, next action with a date. Create the row the day you send the pitch. Move it only when something happens. The six stages are:

1. Sent. The pitch has gone out and nothing has come back. Record the brand, the contact or handle you messaged, the channel, the date, and what you offered in one line. Then add a follow-up date immediately, four days out. A row with no date is a row you will forget.

2. Replied. Any human answer moves the row: "not right now", "what are your rates", "send me ideas". Record the date and their words in one line, then what they need next and when. A reply with no next action is silence that happens to be polite.

3. Briefed. The brand has sent requirements, booked a call, or asked for examples. This is the first real sign of intent. Record the deliverables they asked for, the deadline, the named contact and the date the brief arrived. Everything you quote later is scoped against that list.

4. Quoted. You have sent a number. Record the amount, the currency, the date, exactly what it includes (deliverables, revisions, usage, exclusivity) and the date the quote expires. If the number itself is guesswork, the creator rate calculator gives you a starting price in your own currency before you send it.

5. Won. Terms are agreed in writing, by email or signature. Record the fee, the deliverables, the payment window and where the agreement lives. The row then leaves this list, because delivery, invoices and renewals are a different job with a different set of columns. If you are unsure whether a written agreement is needed at that point, do you need a creator contract gives the short answer.

6. Lost. They said no, picked someone else, or went quiet through three touches. Record the date and one line of reason: budget, timing, another creator, no reply. That reason column is the only part of a pipeline that tells you what to change next month.

Two rules keep it honest. One stage per brand, and a date on every move. If you cannot say when a row last changed, you are guessing rather than managing. If the message you are sending is the weak part, the guide to pitching brands as a content creator fixes that side of it; this list handles everything after the pitch leaves your outbox.

When should you follow up on a pitch?

Silence is the normal reply, not a verdict. Across 12 million outreach emails, the response rate was 8.5% after the first attempt, 14.1% after two and 17.1% after three (Backlinko and Pitchbox). Hunter's 31 million emails say the same thing from the other side: three messages in a sequence drew 106% more replies than one message alone, 6.8% against 3.3% (Hunter).

Three touches is the whole plan:

• Day 0. The pitch.
• Day 4. First follow-up, one short message that repeats the ask.
• Day 11. Final follow-up, then close the row as lost the next morning.

Hi Mei, circling back on my note about three videos for your
autumn launch. If it is not a fit, reply "no thanks" and I will
close it. If it is, tell me what you need to see and I will send
it today.

Last one from me on this. If the timing changes I am easy to
find. Either way I will close the file today so I stop
bothering you.

Both messages do the same job: they make replying cheaper than ignoring you. Never send a fourth. Chasing past three touches is how pitches end up muted, and a muted contact cannot be re-pitched in three months. If a brand replied and then went quiet, that row follows the same rule from the reply date, not the send date. The full set of follow-ups for a brand that has gone quiet is in how to follow up with a brand no reply.

Which numbers are worth tracking in a pipeline?

Three numbers, written down in the same place every week:

• Pitches sent. Count per week and per month. This is the only number you fully control, and it is the first to collapse when a filming week gets busy.
• Reply rate. Replies divided by pitches sent, times 100. It measures the pitch and the contact list, nothing else.
• Quote-to-win rate. Deals won divided by quotes sent, times 100. It measures your price, your scope and how you handle the negotiation.

Say you sent 40 pitches last month. Six replied, so the reply rate is 15%. Three of those six got a quote and one was won, so quote-to-win is 33%. One deal from 40 pitches is a pitch-to-paid rate of 2.5%, which is the number that tells you how many pitches a month your calendar actually needs.

Each broken number points at a different fix:

• Nothing sent, or five pitches a month: the habit is the problem, not the message.
• Pitches out, reply rate under about 4% after three touches: the pitch or the contact is the problem.
• Replies but no quotes: the conversation stalls at interest, so ask what they need to see before you price anything.
• Quotes but no wins: the price or the scope is the problem. Check the creator rate card guide and quote again next month.

There is no published benchmark for quote-to-win rate in creator work, so yours is your own baseline. Two months of numbers beat any table you can find online.

What happens in a weekly review?

Fifteen minutes, same day, same time. Monday morning works, so does Friday before you close the laptop. The review has six moves:

• Add every pitch sent since the last review.
• Send every follow-up whose date has passed. The list should be short, because you dated each row when you created it.
• Move rows that replied, sent a brief or received a quote this week.
• Close anything past three touches as lost, with a one-line reason.
• Check quotes older than a week: one last message, or close the row.
• Write down the three numbers for the week.

That is the whole ritual. The sheet is not the point. The point is that nothing goes quiet without a date on it, and that a quiet week becomes visible as a number instead of a feeling you only notice when the work runs out.

What happens when a brand says yes?

Pitches stay where they were sent: email and DMs. Moving outreach into an app would add a step, not remove one, so this system keeps the pipeline in your spreadsheet. Once a brand is briefing you or negotiating, the deal is real, and that is where a workspace earns its keep. When the money goes quiet after that, how to follow up on a late invoice gives you the scripts.

The Creator List is a private workspace for brand deals you already have. Paste or import the brief from the email or DM and it splits into the real pieces of work, send the agreement from one private link, then handle drafts, project dates and invoices in the same place. It does not track your outreach, and the pipeline above does not pretend otherwise: pitches live outside it, and the workspace takes over from briefed onwards. It is early-stage software, so judge it on that one job.

Your next action takes ten minutes. Open a blank sheet, make the seven columns, and type in every pitch you have sent this month. Put a four-day follow-up date on each one. Tomorrow morning, send the follow-ups that are already due, and write down how many pitches are out. That is your pipeline started.