How to sell to Heads of People at Media & publishing companies
Heads of People in media and publishing are primarily measured on employee retention rates. They respond to outreach that demonstrates a deep understanding of the unique challenges in talent management within a fast-paced, content-driven environment. Highlighting how to streamline hiring processes or enhance employee engagement can capture their attention, as these directly impact their key performance indicators.
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
- high employee turnover
- inefficient hiring processes
- low employee engagement
- difficulty in attracting diverse talent
The playbook
- 01
Identify recent layoffs or restructuring
Research media and publishing companies that have recently undergone layoffs or significant restructuring. Use news outlets and LinkedIn for updates. This indicates a potential need for recruitment support or employee engagement solutions.
- 02
Select companies with high turnover rates
Filter for media companies that have reported high turnover rates in the past year. Use industry reports or HR analytics tools to find this data. Targeting these companies can lead to discussions about improving retention strategies.
- 03
Analyze current talent acquisition challenges
Look for organizations that have publicly shared their struggles with hiring in their newsroom or content teams. This can be found in blogs or interviews with their leadership. Tailor your messaging to address these specific pain points.
- 04
Reach out after industry events
Monitor industry events, webinars, or conferences in media and publishing. Send your outreach within a week after the event when attendees are more open to new ideas and solutions discussed during the sessions.
- 05
Prepare for objections around budget constraints
Anticipate objections related to budget cuts in the media sector. Have a clear understanding of how your solution can provide ROI, especially in terms of reducing hiring costs or improving employee satisfaction, to counter these objections effectively.
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
- Improving retention in publishing
- Talent strategies for media companies
- Streamlining your hiring process
Questions
- Why do Heads of People in media ignore outreach about hiring tools?
- Heads of People often receive numerous outreach messages, making them selective. If the outreach does not address specific challenges they face, such as high turnover or engagement issues, it may be overlooked. Tailoring your message to their unique context is crucial.
- What challenges do Heads of People face in media companies?
- Heads of People in media companies deal with unique challenges like adapting to rapid changes in content consumption and maintaining a skilled workforce. They must balance the need for innovative talent with the pressures of budget constraints and high turnover.
- How can I get a response from a Head of People in publishing?
- To get a response, focus on demonstrating an understanding of their industry-specific challenges. Use insights from recent industry reports or trends that impact their workforce. Personalizing your outreach based on their recent initiatives can also increase your chances.
- What is the best time to reach out to Heads of People in media?
- The best time to reach out is shortly after industry events or during annual review periods when companies are evaluating their talent strategies. This is when they are more likely to consider new solutions that can enhance their workforce management.
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.
Try it on your site