How to sell to Heads of Marketing at Recruiting companies
Heads of Marketing in recruiting are primarily measured on candidate engagement rates. They respond to outreach that demonstrates a clear understanding of their unique challenges, such as high turnover and the need for innovative talent attraction strategies. Showing familiarity with their specific staffing needs and the competitive landscape will prompt them to engage with your message.
Written and maintained by the SoloRiff team, who build outbound software and run outbound with it. The figures below are our own: we measured 562 recruiting company domains over public DNS on 2026-09-03. Last updated 2026-09-03.
What actually hurts
- high candidate turnover
- ineffective talent attraction strategies
- low candidate engagement
- competition for top talent
The playbook
- 01
Identify recent talent acquisition campaigns
Look for companies that have recently launched talent acquisition campaigns or initiatives. Use LinkedIn to filter for posts or announcements from recruiting firms that mention new hiring goals. This indicates they are actively looking for solutions to enhance their candidate engagement.
- 02
Research current staffing challenges
Investigate common staffing challenges faced by the recruiting firm, such as high turnover rates or difficulty attracting qualified candidates. Use industry reports or forums where Heads of Marketing discuss these issues to tailor your outreach to their specific pain points.
- 03
Craft messages around candidate engagement
Create outreach messages that specifically address ways to improve candidate engagement rates. Reference examples from similar recruiting firms that successfully enhanced their engagement and reduced time-to-fill. This shows you understand their key metrics and can provide relevant insights.
- 04
Monitor for industry events and webinars
Keep an eye on upcoming industry events or webinars where Heads of Marketing are likely to participate. Timing your outreach to coincide with these events can increase your chances of getting a response, as they may be more open to discussing new ideas and solutions.
- 05
Follow up with insights from recent trends
After your initial outreach, follow up with insights or data on recent trends in candidate engagement within the recruiting industry. This positions you as a knowledgeable partner and keeps the conversation relevant, increasing the likelihood of securing a meeting.
Can recruiting companies even receive your mail?
We measured the DNS of 562 recruiting companies, sampled evenly across company sizes, to see how many authenticate their own email. It matters in both directions: a domain that does not authenticate is a domain whose team is used to mail going missing — and if your own domain is in the gap, yours is the mail going missing.
Publishes a DMARC policy of quarantine or reject — the domain actually asks receivers to act on failures.
The gap is the finding: 20.2% of 1–10-person companies against 75% of the largest — 55 points apart. Small companies are where the unauthenticated domains are, and small companies are who most cold outreach is aimed at.
Where does your domain sit?
Same three lookups, run live against your domain. Nothing is stored and nothing is emailed to you.
How this was measured
Company domains were sampled within employee-count bands, then queried over public DNS for SPF (TXT at the apex), DMARC (TXT at _dmarc.) and MX. One domain per company, deduplicated. Anyone can reproduce any single row of this with dig.
DKIM is deliberately absent. A DKIM key lives under a selector that cannot be enumerated from outside the domain, so a company with flawless DKIM under a name we did not guess would be counted as having none. That would measure our guess list, not the industry.
Domains with no MX record are excluded rather than counted as failures — parked and redirect-only domains would otherwise drag every figure down and make the result an artefact of the sample.
Sampled within bands, so this describes the population of companies, not of employees: a 10-person company counts once, as does a 10,000-person one. Each band is at least 60 domains; bands below that are not published. Figures are percentages of the sample, not of the whole industry, and we publish no company names — only counts.
Measured 2026-09-03. Re-measured monthly.
The full census across every industry — sortable, with sample sizes, free to reuse under CC BY 4.0.
Subject lines that fit
- Improving candidate engagement
- Boosting talent acquisition success
- Strategies for high turnover
Questions
- Why do Heads of Marketing in recruiting ignore outreach about generic marketing tools?
- Heads of Marketing in recruiting often ignore generic outreach because they are inundated with offers that don't address their specific challenges, such as high turnover or talent attraction. They need to see how a solution directly aligns with their goals and pain points to consider a response.
- What messaging resonates with Heads of Marketing in recruiting?
- Messaging that highlights innovative strategies for improving candidate engagement and reducing time-to-fill resonates well with Heads of Marketing in recruiting. They appreciate insights that reflect an understanding of their unique challenges in the competitive talent landscape.
- How can I demonstrate value to recruiting marketing leaders?
- To demonstrate value, focus on providing actionable insights or case studies that showcase successful candidate engagement strategies. Tailoring your outreach to reflect their specific challenges and offering solutions can significantly increase your chances of engagement.
- What are common objections from Heads of Marketing in recruiting?
- Common objections include concerns about budget constraints, the effectiveness of new strategies, and the time required to implement changes. Addressing these objections with data-driven insights and clear ROI can help alleviate their concerns and foster a productive conversation.
Or have it run itself
SoloRiff does every step above on its own — finds the companies, finds the people, writes each of them individually, and handles the replies. Drop your URL and watch it work before you sign up for anything.
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