Based on a conversation with Outset PR’s global media manager Antonina Kaminskaia, this piece explains how media communication actually works, why teams struggle to get responses, and what turns scattered messages into a process that consistently delivers results.
It usually starts with the most basic contact you can find
The simplest move possible is the following: open a publication’s website, find the contact page, and write to the first available address – usually a generic inbox.
On its own, this approach isn’t wrong. At the very beginning, the goal is to show up and initiate a conversation.
As Antonina recalls: “When I was starting out, the task was very straightforward: find any contact you can and get in touch. At that stage, it’s often enough to establish the first line of communication and see if there’s any response at all.”
What changes quickly is the understanding of how limited that single contact really is.
There’s a common assumption that every media outlet has a clear, functional entry point. In reality, that’s rarely the case. A public inbox doesn’t guarantee access, and even sites that publish sponsored content may have no media kit, no documented guidelines, and no predictable process behind that email.
Persistence matters, but only when it’s controlled
There’s no universal formula for how many attempts it takes to get a reply. Sometimes a great email gets ignored, sometimes a weaker one gets answered. Timing, inbox volume, and pure chance still play a role.
That’s why Antonina doesn’t frame it as a choice between quality and quantity: “You need enough touches to stay visible, but the touches still need to feel worth answering. The work is in managing that balance without sliding into spam.”
This is also a time to be more creative. If a media outlet is relevant, you may use alternative channels: social media, YouTube-linked emails, side contacts, or other available points of entry. In some cases, that kind of detective work leads to the right person faster than the published contact page ever would.
And yes, sometimes that search gets unconventional.
“There was a case where we couldn’t find any contact on the website at all,” Antonina shares. “Eventually, we found the journalist’s old university email – and wrote there. It sounds unusual, but in practice you seize every opportunity if the media is important enough.”
The biggest mistake is treating emailing like a machine
Early-stage teams often forget that on the other side of the inbox, there is a person – and usually an overloaded one.
Replies can come in two days, two months, or not at all. Not because the opportunity isn’t there, but because the message didn’t land at the right time, didn’t reach the right person, or simply wasn’t clear enough to prioritize.
This is where many teams lose momentum. Outreach becomes mechanical: messages are sent in bulk, without adapting to context, without thinking about how they are received.
Once you approach emailing as human communication, the dynamics change.
Even basic signals can improve your odds. The frequency of publications can indicate how busy the editorial team is. The type of content shows whether they regularly handle sponsored placements. The absence of structure (no media kit, no standardized rules) means that you’ll need to guide the conversation more directly.
The first email should be short, understandable, and impossible to misread
Media outreach works better when the ask is clear, the wording is readable, and the tone is direct without sounding cold. The person on the receiving end should immediately detect what you want and why the conversation is worth continuing.
The subject should state the purpose right away. “If the request is about sponsored content, say that. Don’t hide the point behind a clever line that forces the recipient to decode it,” Antonina argues.
The body should also stay simple. Four things are usually enough:
- who you are
- who you represent
- what you want to place
- a link to your website and contact details
“With that first exchange come the basics you need to move forward,” Antonina says. “This also means there’s no value in overperforming politeness. It’s better to be respectful and head-on than overly flattering and vague.”
Follow-ups work better when they lead to a call
Antonina strongly favors calls over long text threads. In her experience, people behave very differently in a conversation than they do in an extended back-and-forth over email.
Written communication is efficient, but it also creates distance. A short call removes that distance, making the interaction feel more real and reducing the friction that tends to build up in email-only interaction.
As Antonina explains: “When everyone is sitting behind their laptops all day, communication becomes very flat. A call brings back a sense that you’re talking to an actual person. And in media buying, that matters a lot.”
That’s why the most effective follow-up is often simple: reference the previous message, clarify the ask if needed, and suggest a quick call. It’s a small shift, but it changes the dynamic and gives the other side a more natural way to engage.
The real differentiator is systematization
Outreach looks chaotic only from the outside. At scale, it only works when it’s systematized almost obsessively.
At Outset PR, this process is built around detailed tracking. Every interaction is recorded: contacts, attempts, follow-ups, priorities, and internal ownership. The goal is continuity – so that any team member can step in, dive into the context, and continue the communication without starting from zero.
This is where spreadsheets become infrastructure. The team maintains a database of thousands of media outlets, each with its own profile: geography, relevance, pricing, communication history, responsiveness, and current status. Every touchpoint is logged, every missed reply is visible, and every next step is defined.
As Antonina puts it: “If you don’t track this properly, everything falls apart. You forget who you contacted, when you followed up, what they replied. Tables are what keep the whole process under control.”
This level of structure turns outreach into something measurable, transferable, and continuously improvable. Without it, scaling media relations is practically impossible.
Good relationships create leverage later
This kind of systematized, consistent work compounds into something more valuable – relationships. When communication is regular, understandable, and respectful, media teams stop treating you as a random inbound request. You become a known counterparty: predictable, reliable, and easy to work with.
That changes everything. It takes less effort to negotiate formats and conditions, secure additional slots, and move faster when timing matters. What would normally require multiple back-and-forths turns into a shorter, more direct process.
For advertisers, this translates into more stable and foreseeable outcomes. For the agency, it means better control over campaigns. For media teams, it means working with a trusted partner who brings structured demand and revenue.
In other words, a win-win setup – but only after a lot of invisible groundwork. That’s why strong teams don’t only reach out when they need a placement. They maintain their presence, stay in touch, and treat relationship-building as an ongoing layer of work.
Media relationships start with process, not influence
For beginners, this work rarely feels exciting. You write to generic inboxes, wait for replies that may never come, and try to prove your relevance to people who have no reason to prioritize you yet. There are no shortcuts, no instant access, and no guarantees that any given message will lead anywhere.
That’s the entry point. But if you push through that phase, the dynamic eventually changes.
As Antonina describes it: “If you keep working systematically and build real connections centered around people, at some point it flips. Media representatives come back to you, offering placements, suggesting ideas, and looking for ways to collaborate. That’s when the process starts working for you.”
That shift is what media buying is really about. Not just sending cold emails with coverage requests, but building a system where consistent, structured communication turns into long-term relationships that eventually generate opportunities on their own.
