How to sell to Heads of Operations at Media & publishing companies
Heads of Operations in Media & Publishing are primarily measured on operational efficiency. They respond to outreach that demonstrates a clear understanding of their workflow challenges, such as bottlenecks in content production or distribution. Show how your solution can streamline their processes, reduce turnaround times, or improve team collaboration to capture their attention.
Written and maintained by the SoloRiff team, who build outbound software and run outbound with it. The figures below are our own: we measured 563 media & publishing company domains over public DNS on 2026-09-03. Last updated 2026-09-03.
What actually hurts
- bottlenecks in content production
- inefficient resource allocation
- high employee turnover
- delays in content approval
The playbook
- 01
Identify recent content strategy shifts
Look for companies that have recently announced changes in their content strategy, such as a shift to digital-first or new audience targeting. Use news articles or press releases as your data source. This indicates a potential need for operational support to execute these changes.
- 02
Target publishers with high churn rates
Filter your list for media companies that have reported high employee turnover in their operations teams. This is a sign of underlying operational inefficiencies. Highlight how your solution can stabilize their workforce and improve retention.
- 03
Address inefficiencies in the newsroom
Craft your message around improving newsroom workflows, especially if you know they struggle with collaboration tools or content management systems. Be specific about how your solution can simplify communication and reduce the time from idea to publication.
- 04
Follow up after major industry events
Schedule follow-ups with prospects who attended recent media conferences or expos. These events often spark new initiatives. Reference any insights they shared during the event to demonstrate your attentiveness and relevance.
- 05
Engage with their operational pain points
When reaching out, directly mention common operational pain points like delays in content approval or inefficient resource allocation. Use language that resonates with their daily challenges to increase your chances of a response.
Can media & publishing companies even receive your mail?
We measured the DNS of 563 media & publishing 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: 24.2% of 1–10-person companies against 82.9% of the largest — 59 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
- Streamlining your newsroom operations
- Improving content production efficiency
- Reducing churn in your operations team
Questions
- Why do Heads of Operations in media ignore cold outreach?
- Heads of Operations often receive numerous outreach attempts that fail to address their specific operational challenges. If the outreach does not clearly demonstrate an understanding of their unique workflows or pain points, it is likely to be overlooked.
- What operational challenges do media companies face?
- Media companies frequently struggle with content production delays, inefficient collaboration among teams, and high turnover rates in operational roles. These challenges can hinder their ability to deliver timely and relevant content to audiences.
- How can I make my outreach stand out to this role?
- To stand out, focus on specific operational issues that impact their efficiency. Use case studies or examples that relate to their industry, and clearly articulate how your solution can address these challenges in a measurable way.
- What triggers a Heads of Operations to consider new solutions?
- Triggers might include changes in content strategy, high employee turnover, or recent negative feedback on operational performance. These events often prompt a reevaluation of existing processes and the tools used to manage them.
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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