How to sell to Heads of Sales at Media & publishing companies
Heads of Sales in Media & Publishing are primarily measured on revenue growth. They respond to outreach that provides insights into audience engagement metrics, as this directly impacts their ability to drive sales. Demonstrating an understanding of how content performance translates to revenue will 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
- declining ad revenue
- audience engagement drops
- competition from digital platforms
- difficulty in monetizing content
The playbook
- 01
Identify recent funding rounds
Search for media companies that have recently secured funding, as this indicates growth potential. Use platforms like Crunchbase or PitchBook to filter for companies that have raised capital in the last 6 months. This context can lead to a conversation about their sales strategies.
- 02
Research content performance metrics
Investigate how the prospect's content is performing by checking their website analytics or social media engagement. Tools like SimilarWeb can provide insights into audience reach and engagement rates. Tailor your outreach by mentioning specific metrics that highlight their strengths or areas for improvement.
- 03
Analyze industry trends
Stay updated on the latest trends in media consumption and advertising. Resources like eMarketer or MediaPost can provide valuable information. Reference these trends in your communication to demonstrate your expertise and relevance to their current challenges.
- 04
Address common sales challenges
Prepare to discuss common pain points such as declining ad revenues or audience fragmentation. Anticipate objections related to budget constraints or skepticism about new solutions. This preparation will help you position your insights as solutions to their specific challenges.
- 05
Schedule follow-ups based on engagement
If you receive a positive response, aim to schedule a call within a week to maintain momentum. If there’s no response, follow up after 5 business days with a value-add email, referencing a relevant article or case study that addresses their pain points.
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
- Boosting audience engagement
- Navigating ad revenue challenges
- Insights on media trends
Questions
- Why do Heads of Sales in media ignore outreach about new technologies?
- They often receive numerous pitches that do not directly address their immediate revenue concerns. Outreach that fails to demonstrate a clear understanding of their current challenges, like declining ad revenue, is likely to be overlooked.
- What factors influence a Head of Sales' decision-making process?
- They prioritize solutions that can directly impact revenue growth and audience engagement. Additionally, they consider the scalability of solutions and how they integrate with existing workflows in the newsroom.
- How can I effectively engage with Heads of Sales in media?
- Engagement should focus on demonstrating a clear understanding of the media landscape and the specific challenges they face. Providing actionable insights into audience metrics or content monetization strategies can spark interest.
- What are common objections from Heads of Sales in media?
- Common objections include concerns about budget constraints, skepticism about the effectiveness of new solutions, and a preference for established vendors. Addressing these objections with data-driven insights can help overcome resistance.
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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