News Signal Outreach

The catch-all signal composite. Every other composite handles a specific signal type (funding, hiring, leadership change, champion move). This one handles everything else — any piece of news or public event that could create a reason to reach out.

A regulation change. A product recall. A competitor acquisition. A market expansion. A layoff. An earnings miss. A new partnership. An industry report. A conference keynote. A viral LinkedIn post. Any external event that shifts a company's priorities, creates urgency, or opens a window for your product.

Why this composite exists: The world generates an infinite stream of potential outreach triggers. The four structured signal composites handle the most common patterns. This composite handles the long tail — the unpredictable, opportunistic moments that often produce the best outreach because nobody else is sending a templated sequence about them.

When to Auto-Load

Load this composite when ANY of these are true:

• User shares ANY URL (LinkedIn post, article, tweet, blog, news) and asks about a company or person mentioned in it
• User says "came across", "saw this post", "found this article", "check this out", "is this relevant", "is this company a fit", "should we reach out"
• User mentions a company or person they discovered from an external source (social media, news, conference, podcast, newsletter) and asks about relevance or fit
• User asks "can we reach out to anyone based on this?"
• User says "check if this news is relevant to our prospects", "news-based outreach", "trigger-based outreach"
• User has a list of companies and wants to check recent news for outreach angles
• The news doesn't fit neatly into funding, hiring, leadership change, or champion move categories
• An upstream workflow surfaces a news item that needs evaluation

Key principle: If the user shares an external signal (URL, post, article, mention) and asks ANY question about the companies/people in it — load this composite. Don't wait for the word "outreach." The composite handles both evaluation-only (Steps 1-3) and full outreach (Steps 1-6).

Input Flexibility

This composite accepts three input modes:

Step 0: Configuration (One-Time Setup)

On first run for a client/user, collect and store these preferences. Skip on subsequent runs.

ICP Definition

Your Company Context

Examples of relevant_news_categories:

# For a cybersecurity product:
relevant_news_categories: ["data breach", "compliance regulation", "security incident",
  "digital transformation", "cloud migration", "IPO/going public"]
 
# For a sales AI product:
relevant_news_categories: ["sales team scaling", "market expansion", "new product launch",
  "competitor acquisition", "cost cutting", "revenue miss"]
 
# For an HR tech product:
relevant_news_categories: ["layoffs", "rapid hiring", "remote work policy",
  "DEI initiative", "union activity", "culture crisis"]

Signal Detection Config

Contact Finding & Outreach Config

Store config in: clients/<client-name>/config/signal-outreach.json or equivalent.

Step 1: Parse & Extract

Purpose: Take the raw news input — whatever form it arrives in — and extract structured entities (companies, people) and the core event.

Input Contract

Three modes:

Mode A: News → Companies/People

news_input: {
  mode: "news_to_targets"
  items: [
    {
      type: "url" | "text" | "structured"
      content: string               # URL to article, raw text, or structured summary
      source: string | null          # "TechCrunch", "LinkedIn post", "user provided", etc.
    }
  ]
}

Mode B: Companies → News

news_input: {
  mode: "targets_to_news"
  companies: [
    {
      name: string
      domain: string
      industry?: string
    }
  ]
  lookback_days: integer
}

Mode C: People → News

news_input: {
  mode: "people_to_news"
  people: [
    {
      full_name: string
      company: string
      linkedin_url?: string
    }
  ]
  lookback_days: integer
}

Process

Mode A: News → Companies/People

1. Fetch and parse the news content:

   • If URL → fetch the page, extract article text
   • If raw text → use as-is
   • If structured → use as-is

2. Extract entities:

   • Companies mentioned (name, role in the story — subject, affected party, partner, competitor)
   • People mentioned (name, title, company, role in the story)
   • The core event (what happened, in one sentence)
   • Event category (regulation, acquisition, partnership, product launch, market event, crisis, expansion, contraction, etc.)
   • Date of event
   • Affected industries

3. Expand if needed: If the news implies a broader set of affected companies beyond those mentioned:

   • "New FDA regulation on telehealth" → all telehealth companies, not just ones in the article
   • "Major data breach at [company]" → the breached company AND their competitors (who can capitalize)
   • "Industry report shows X trend" → companies in that industry

Mode B: Companies → News

1. For each company, search for recent news using configured news_tool:

   • Web search: "{company_name}" AND (news OR announced OR launches OR raises OR expands OR partners) within lookback_days
   • Filter results against relevant_news_categories from config
   • Extract the same fields as Mode A for each news item found

2. Group results: Company → list of news items, ranked by relevance to your product

Mode C: People → News

1. For each person, search for recent news/activity:

   • Web search: "{full_name}" AND "{company}" within lookback_days
   • LinkedIn activity (if available): recent posts, shares, comments
   • Look for: promotions, speaking engagements, published articles, quoted in press, new projects

2. Group results: Person → list of news items/activity

Output Contract

extracted_signals: [
  {
    entity: {
      type: "company" | "person"
      name: string
      company: string               # Company name (same as name if type=company)
      domain: string | null
      role_in_news: string           # "subject", "affected", "partner", "competitor", "mentioned"
    }
    news: {
      headline: string              # One-line summary of what happened
      event_category: string        # "regulation", "acquisition", "expansion", "crisis", etc.
      event_date: string
      full_summary: string          # 2-3 sentence summary
      source_url: string | null
      affected_industries: string[]
    }
  }
]

Human Checkpoint

## Extracted Signals
 
Source: [news source/input description]
Event: [one-line summary]
Category: [event category]
 
### Companies/People Extracted
| Entity | Type | Role in News | Industry |
|--------|------|-------------|----------|
| Acme Corp | Company | Subject | Healthcare |
| Jane Doe | Person | Quoted (CEO) | Healthcare |
| HealthTech sector | Industry | Affected | Healthcare |
 
Also evaluating: X companies in [affected industry] not directly mentioned
 
Proceed with ICP qualification? (Y/n)

Step 2: Qualify Against ICP

Purpose: For each extracted entity, determine if they're an ICP fit. Drop companies/people that don't match. Pure LLM reasoning — inherently tool-agnostic.

Input Contract

extracted_signals: [...]              # From Step 1 output
icp_criteria: {
  target_industries: string[]
  target_company_size: string
  target_geographies: string[]
  disqualifiers: string[]
}
your_company: {
  description: string
  pain_point: string
}

Process

For each entity:

1. If entity is a company:

   • Check industry against target_industries
   • Estimate company size (from news context or quick web search)
   • Check geography if relevant
   • Check against disqualifiers
   • Result: Pass / Fail with reasoning

2. If entity is a person:

   • Identify their company
   • Qualify the company through the same ICP checks above
   • Additionally check: is this person's role relevant? (matches buyer_titles, champion_titles, or user_titles)
   • Result: Pass / Fail with reasoning

3. For entities implied but not mentioned (e.g., "all telehealth companies" from a regulation news):

   • Use web search or existing company lists to identify specific companies in the affected space
   • Qualify each against ICP
   • This step may surface new companies not in your existing pipeline

Output Contract

icp_qualified: [
  {
    entity: { ... }                   # From Step 1
    news: { ... }                     # From Step 1
    icp_assessment: {
      fit: "strong" | "moderate"
      industry_match: boolean
      size_match: boolean | "unknown"
      reasoning: string               # Why they're a fit
    }
  }
]
icp_disqualified: [
  {
    entity_name: string
    reason: string
  }
]

Human Checkpoint

## ICP Qualification
 
### Qualified (X entities)
| Entity | Type | Industry | Size | ICP Fit | Reasoning |
|--------|------|----------|------|---------|-----------|
| Acme Corp | Company | Healthcare SaaS | ~200 | Strong | Core ICP industry, right size |
| MedTech Inc | Company | HealthTech | ~500 | Moderate | Adjacent industry, large |
 
### Disqualified (X entities)
| Entity | Reason |
|--------|--------|
| BigPharma Co | Enterprise (50K+ employees) — above target size |
 
Approve qualified list?

Step 3: Identify Connection Angle

Purpose: This is the critical thinking step. For each ICP-qualified entity, determine the specific connection between the news event and your product. Why should they care about your product RIGHT NOW because of THIS news? Pure LLM reasoning — inherently tool-agnostic.

Input Contract

icp_qualified: [...]                  # From Step 2 output
your_company: {
  description: string
  pain_point: string
  product_outcomes: string[]
  proof_points: string[]
  relevant_news_categories: string[]
}

Process

For each qualified entity, answer three questions:

Question 1: "Why does this news create urgency for our product?"

Map the news event category to a product relevance pattern:

Question 2: "What's the specific angle?"

Craft a one-sentence connection:

"Because [news event], [company] now needs [specific outcome your product delivers]."

Examples:

• "Because Acme just acquired BetaCo, they need to unify two separate CRM systems — exactly what [product] does in 30 days."
• "Because the new HIPAA amendment takes effect in Q3, [company] needs to audit their data handling — [product] automates this."
• "Because [person] just posted about struggling with [pain], they're actively looking for a solution — [product] solves this."

Question 3: "How strong is this connection?"

Output Contract

connection_angles: [
  {
    entity: { ... }
    news: { ... }
    icp_assessment: { ... }
    connection: {
      urgency_reason: string          # Why this news creates urgency
      specific_angle: string          # One-sentence connection
      connection_strength: "direct" | "adjacent" | "thematic"
      timing_note: string             # How time-sensitive this outreach is
      recommended_framework: string   # Which email framework fits best
    }
  }
]

Framework Selection Based on Connection Strength

Human Checkpoint

## Connection Angles
 
### Direct Connections (X entities) — Act quickly
| Entity | News | Angle | Timing |
|--------|------|-------|--------|
| Acme Corp | Acquired BetaCo | "Need to unify CRM systems — [product] does this in 30 days" | This week (integration planning starts immediately) |
 
### Adjacent Connections (X entities)
| Entity | News | Angle | Timing |
|--------|------|-------|--------|
| MedTech Inc | Expanding to EMEA | "Localized [function] becomes a requirement — [product] supports 15 languages" | This month |
 
### Thematic Connections (X entities)
| Entity | News | Angle | Timing |
|--------|------|-------|--------|
| HealthCo | Industry report on [trend] | "They're likely evaluating [category] solutions" | Flexible |
 
Approve these angles before we find contacts?

Step 4: Find Relevant People

Purpose: For each qualified entity with a connection angle, find the right people to contact.

Input Contract

connection_angles: [...]              # From Step 3 output
buyer_titles: string[]                # From config
champion_titles: string[]             # From config
user_titles: string[]                 # From config
max_contacts_per_company: integer     # Default: 3-5

Process

1. If the entity is already a person (Mode C or person mentioned in news):

   • They're the primary contact. Still find 1-2 additional contacts at their company (buyer if they're a champion, champion if they're a buyer) for multi-threading.

2. If the entity is a company:

   • Use configured contact_tool to find people matching buyer_titles, champion_titles, user_titles
   • Prioritize people whose role is closest to the news event:

   News Category	Prioritize These Contacts
   Regulation / Compliance	Legal, Compliance, Operations leadership
   Acquisition / Merger	COO, CTO, VP Operations, Integration leads
   Market expansion	VP Sales, VP Marketing, Country/Regional leads
   Cost cutting / Layoffs	COO, CFO, VP Operations
   Product launch	CTO, VP Product, VP Engineering
   Crisis / Incident	CISO, VP Engineering, CTO (for security), CEO/COO (for operational)
   General growth	Default to buyer_titles from config

3. For each contact, note their relevance to the news:

   • Are they directly affected by the news? (Their department, their function)
   • Are they the decision-maker for the response to this news?
   • Are they the person who will feel the pain this news creates?

Output Contract

contacts: [
  {
    person: {
      full_name: string
      first_name: string
      last_name: string
      title: string
      email: string | null
      linkedin_url: string | null
      role_type: "buyer" | "champion" | "user"
      news_relevance: string         # Why THIS person for THIS news
    }
    company: {
      name: string
      domain: string
    }
    connection: {
      specific_angle: string
      connection_strength: string
      urgency_reason: string
    }
    news: {
      headline: string
      event_category: string
      source_url: string | null
    }
  }
]

Human Checkpoint

## Contacts Found
 
### Acme Corp — "Acquired BetaCo" (Direct connection)
| Name | Title | Role | Why This Person |
|------|-------|------|----------------|
| Sarah Kim | COO | Buyer | Owns post-acquisition integration |
| David Park | VP Operations | Champion | Will manage unified workflows |
| Amy Chen | Director of Sales Ops | User | Directly affected by CRM unification |
 
### MedTech Inc — "Expanding to EMEA" (Adjacent connection)
| ... |
 
Total: X contacts across Y companies
 
Approve before we draft emails?

Step 5: Draft Personalized Outreach

Purpose: Draft outreach where the news event is the hook, your product is the solution, and the email demonstrates you understand their specific situation. Pure LLM reasoning — inherently tool-agnostic.

Input Contract

contacts: [...]                       # From Step 4 output
your_company: {
  description: string
  pain_point: string
  product_outcomes: string[]
  proof_points: string[]
}
sequence_config: {
  touches: integer                    # Default: 3
  timing: integer[]                   # Default varies by connection strength (see below)
  tone: string                       # Default: "casual-direct"
  cta: string                       # Default: "15-min call"
}

Process

1. Adjust sequence timing by connection strength:

   Strength	Timing	Rationale
   Direct	Day 1 / 3 / 7	Urgency is real — they're actively dealing with this
   Adjacent	Day 1 / 5 / 12	Standard timing — urgency is implied, not immediate
   Thematic	Day 1 / 7 / 14	Slower cadence — this is awareness, not crisis response

2. Build the email around the news, not the product:

   The news is the subject. Your product is the punchline. Never lead with the product.

   Element	Source	How to Use
   News hook	Step 1 news.headline	Open with what happened — show you're informed
   Impact on them	Step 3 connection.urgency_reason	Explain what this means for their specific role
   Your angle	Step 3 connection.specific_angle	Connect the dots to your product naturally
   Proof	Config proof_points	Show a peer who faced a similar situation
   CTA	Config	Low-friction ask

3. Email structure by connection strength:

   Direct connection (Signal-Proof-Ask):

   Hook: Reference the specific news event
   Impact: What this means for them (1 sentence)
   Proof: A peer who faced the same situation and used your product
   Ask: Soft CTA

   Adjacent connection (PAS):

   Problem: The downstream challenge the news creates
   Agitate: What happens if they don't address it (1 sentence)
   Solve: How your product helps, with a proof point
   Ask: Soft CTA

   Thematic connection (AIDA):

   Attention: Reference the news/trend
   Interest: How it relates to their company specifically
   Desire: What your product does in this context
   Action: Soft CTA

4. Personalization layers:

   Layer	What Gets Personalized	Source
   News reference	The specific event and its relevance	Step 1 news data
   Company context	What their company does, their industry, their situation	Step 2 ICP research
   Role context	Why THIS person cares about this news	Step 4 news_relevance
   Your company fit	How your product specifically helps in this scenario	Step 3 connection angle

5. Follow email-drafting skill hard rules. Additionally:

   • Never sensationalize negative news. If the signal is a layoff, breach, or crisis, be empathetic, not opportunistic. "I know this is a challenging time" not "Your layoffs mean you need our tool!"
   • Don't pretend you just happened to see the news. Be direct: "Saw the news about [event]" not "I came across an interesting article."
   • If the news is about a crisis, wait 48-72 hours before reaching out. Immediate outreach during a crisis looks predatory.

Output Contract

email_sequences: [
  {
    contact: { full_name, email, title, company_name, role_type, news_relevance }
    news_context: { headline, event_category, source_url }
    connection: { specific_angle, connection_strength }
    sequence: [
      {
        touch_number: integer
        send_day: integer
        subject: string
        body: string
        framework: string
        personalization_elements: {
          news_reference: string       # How the news was referenced
          company_context: string      # How their company situation was used
          role_context: string         # How their specific role was leveraged
          product_connection: string   # How the product was positioned
        }
        word_count: integer
      }
    ]
  }
]

Human Checkpoint

Present samples grouped by connection strength:

## Sample Outreach for Review
 
### Direct Connection: Sarah Kim, COO @ Acme Corp
News: Acme acquired BetaCo | Angle: CRM unification | Framework: Signal-Proof-Ask
 
**Touch 1 — Day 1**
Subject: Unifying Acme + BetaCo systems
> Hi Sarah — saw the BetaCo acquisition. Congrats. The integration
> sprint typically surfaces a CRM unification challenge fast —
> two systems, overlapping data, different workflows.
>
> [Peer company] faced the same thing after their acquisition last year.
> [Product] had both systems unified in 30 days. Happy to share how.
>
> Worth a 15-minute call?
 
**Touch 2 — Day 3**
> [New angle — data migration complexity, with a specific metric]
 
**Touch 3 — Day 7**
> [Breakup with offer to share the integration playbook]
 
---
 
### Adjacent Connection: Dr. Lee, VP Product @ MedTech Inc
News: EMEA expansion | Angle: Localization needs | Framework: PAS
 
**Touch 1 — Day 1**
Subject: EMEA expansion + [function] localization
> [full email]
 
---
 
Approve these samples? I'll generate the rest in the same style.

Step 6: Handoff to Outreach

Identical to the other signal composites. Package contacts + email sequences for the configured outreach tool.

Output Contract

campaign_package: {
  tool: string
  file_path: string
  contact_count: integer
  sequence_touches: integer
  estimated_send_days: integer
  next_action: string
}

Human Checkpoint

## Campaign Ready
 
Tool: [configured tool]
Signal type: News-triggered
News event: [headline]
Connection strengths: X direct, Y adjacent, Z thematic
Contacts: N people across M companies
Sequence: 3 touches (timing varies by connection strength)
 
Ready to launch?

Execution Summary

Total human review time: ~15-25 minutes

Key Difference from Other Signal Composites

Sensitivity Guidelines

Some news events require careful tone calibration:

Rule of thumb: If you wouldn't bring it up in a face-to-face conversation at a conference, don't put it in a cold email.

Tips

• Direct connections are rare but powerful. Most news creates adjacent or thematic connections. When you find a direct one, prioritize it — these convert at 2-3x the rate.
• Speed matters for direct connections. The first vendor to reference a relevant news event looks informed. The fifth looks like they're running the same playbook.
• Don't force weak connections. If you can't articulate the angle in one sentence, the connection is too weak. Drop it.
• News about competitors is gold. If a competitor raises funding, gets acquired, has a security breach, or launches a product — their customers and prospects are suddenly open to conversations.
• Negative news requires a 48-72 hour cooling period. Reaching out the day of a layoff or breach is predatory. Wait, then lead with empathy.
• Industry reports and trend pieces make great thematic triggers. "The Gartner report on [category] just dropped — here's what it means for [company]" positions you as thoughtful, not reactive.
• Combine with other signal composites. News often contains embedded signals: an acquisition article mentions the acquiring company is hiring 50 people (hiring signal), a new CEO is named (leadership change signal), or the company just raised funding (funding signal). Route these to the appropriate specialist composite for better outreach.