Client and business letters
Proposal follow-up letter examples
Following up a proposal on paper changes the dynamic, because it cannot be ignored the way a third email can and it cannot be replied to in ten seconds either. It gives a prospect who has gone quiet a graceful way back into the conversation, which is usually what the silence is actually about.
Written by Autopen Australia · Updated
The straightforward follow-up
[FIRST NAME],
We sent through the proposal for [PROJECT] on [DATE] and I have not chased it, on the assumption that you have had more pressing things on.
If it is still live, there is one part I would happily rework: [ELEMENT]. If it is not, tell me and I will stop wondering. A no is genuinely a useful answer.
[NAME], [DIRECT LINE]
Where the budget was probably the problem
[FIRST NAME],
My guess about [PROJECT] is that the number was higher than you had in mind.
If that is right, say so and I will show you what the same work looks like at two thirds of it, because there is a version. If the number was not the issue, ignore this and I will assume the timing was.
[NAME], [DIRECT LINE]
Closing it off without burning it
Send this one last. It frees both of you and it is the letter that most often gets a reply.
[FIRST NAME],
I am going to take [PROJECT] off our list rather than keep following up, which I suspect will be a relief to both of us.
Nothing has changed at our end and the proposal stands if it comes back around. Good luck with it either way.
[NAME]
Getting it right
- What to mention. Which proposal, in case there are several. One thing you would clarify or change. An explicit statement that a no is a fine answer, which is what makes the letter easy to reply to.
- What to leave out. "Just circling back" and "bumping this to the top of your inbox". Deadlines you have invented. Any hint of injury at not having heard.
- How long. 60 to 100 words.
- How personal. Relaxed. The whole value of the letter is that it does not read as pressure.
- When not to send one. Before the date you said you would follow up. Paper takes days, so send it to arrive a week after the deadline rather than on it.
Personalising more than a handful
The fields that earn their place here: [FIRST NAME], [PROJECT], [DATE], [ELEMENT].
This is the one letter in the library that should rarely be run at volume. A proposal follow-up merged across fifty live deals will name the wrong element on several of them, and on a live deal that error costs the deal. Use the wording; write them individually.
Before any run, read the piece with the longest value in your data, the shortest, and the empty one. If all three read as English the merge is sound. Personalising direct mail at scale covers the rest.
Sending these at volume
This one is mostly here for the wording rather than the production. Where it does become a volume job is tender-heavy work, where the same proposal goes to forty councils or forty practices and the follow-up is genuinely identical.
Autopen Australia writes each piece individually with a real ballpoint and hand-addresses the envelopes.
Following up the same proposal across a large list? Tell us the shape of it
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