Media outreach splits into two things. Emails proposing a paid placement, where the commercial terms are on the table in the first message, reply at 6.0%. Emails proposing coverage, a feature, a mention or an expert contribution, reply at 5.0%.
Both are strong numbers against an all industries median of 0.74%, and the gap is smaller than it looks. But the direction is consistent and it holds across publisher sizes. An editor or partnerships contact reading a cold email is triaging by whether there is a decision to make, and a number makes a decision available immediately.
The weaker version of both patterns is the one that withholds the specifics until a call. Asking to discuss a potential collaboration performs worse than naming the placement, the page and the figure, because the reader cannot tell whether the call is worth the diary slot.
Put the commercial terms in the first email even when they are not final. A range is enough. The reply you want is either yes or a counter, and neither is available to a reader who does not know what you are proposing.
Hi [First name],
Your roundup of scheduling tools ranks well and gets updated, which is rarer than it should be.
We would like to be included and are happy to pay for the placement. Our budget for a piece like that is in the mid hundreds, and we can supply the copy or leave it entirely to you.
Is that something you take?
Hi [First name],
We measure reply rates across a large volume of outbound email and have figures by industry that nobody else publishes.
If you are working on anything about outbound or sales tooling, happy to send the numbers over with no conditions attached, quoted or not.
Want them?
Join us to elevate your outreach!
Yes, or at least a range. Publishers triage inbound by whether a decision is available, and an email that hides the number reads as one that has no number. A range invites a counter, which is a reply.
It works when the exposure is genuinely larger than theirs, which is rarely the case if you are the one sending the cold email. If your audience is smaller than the publisher’s, exposure is not a currency you have.
Partnerships or commercial for anything paid, and the section editor for anything editorial. Sending a paid proposal to an editor usually gets it deleted rather than forwarded, because it reads as an attempt to buy coverage.
Further than feels necessary. Publishers plan commercial inventory a quarter or more ahead, so a pitch that arrives in the month you want to run is competing for space that is already sold.
