5// Where does Trail Runner go from here?

An interview with Zoe Rom, Editor in Chief of Trail Runner

Hey pals,

After my analysis of Outside’s playbook two weeks ago, I wanted to hear more about how Trail Runner faired during their acquisition and how they have evolved over the past few years as competition in the Trail Running media space grows.

Before I had even written that piece, Zoe Rom, the Editor in Chief of Trail Runner, emailed out of the blue to kindly show how much she appreciated my work and was happy to chat about Trail Runner - so I took her up on this offer! Over the course of a few emails Zoe generously laid out the past, present and future of Trail Runner and her perspective on the industry.

As you might expect from one of Trail Running’s most respected journalists, Zoe is a peerless writer and it was an absolute pleasure to hear about Zoe’s role at Trail Runner as well as the changes she’s brought about during a period that contained both the COVID Pandemic, the Outside acquisition and the cut to the print magazine.

There’s a wealth of learnings in this interview for creators, media operators, journalists and brand managers alike, but a few short takeaways:

Whilst a risky move, a paywall can recentre a publication around what their readers want

However, what people say they want to read and what content motivates them to subscribe are entirely different things

The outdoor industry advertising budgets are seeing similiar trends to other verticals - budgets are shifting to more measurable performance oriented formats ahead of endemic print media ads

The process of making content is just as important as its output

I thoroughly enjoyed this interview and I hope you do too :)

How would you describe your role as Editor in Chief at Trail Runner? 

My role is primarily as a brand director, crafting and executing on editorial and brand strategy. I still love (and get to!) get my hands dirty with lots of writing and editing which is my happy place. EIC is an exciting combination of deciding who Trail Runner is from a higher level-strategy perspective, and getting to integrate that into how I assign, write and edit stories. 

You’ve been at Trail Runner for over 4 years now, working through COVID and the Outside acquisition, how has Trail Runner changed over that time?

It’s changed a lot! When I first started as Assistant Editor, we were publishing 1-2 pieces a week. Now, we’re publishing 2-3 pieces daily. Our output has increased as we’ve pivoted away from being a print-first, digital afterthought to a digital-first (and only) brand. We’re leaning a lot more on data to guide our strategy now, but we’re always focused on the human touch that makes us human. Our stable of writers is younger and more diverse than ever, and we have more people pitching us, which is exciting. We want to reflect the brilliance and diversity of perspectives that exists in our community, and supporting and cultivating a broad base of contributors is the best way to make sure we’re consistently challenging ourselves and covering the stories our audience deserves. 

One of the biggest changes was the introduction of the paywall with the Outside acquisition. I’m actually a big fan of this change because it makes us more accountable to the reader.

When the audience is our primary stakeholder, we need to be more responsive to the audience’s interests and needs, rather than that of advertisers.

I want to help guide and write stories that people are invested in, and feel comfortable paying for. Our goal is to make something that feels indispensable, and like an investment for our reader.  That incentivizes quality and community connection over appeasing advertisers, and that’s an incentive structure I can get behind as a writer! 

Trail Runner is a high converting brand, meaning, we’re actually doing pretty well with the paywall. There’s obviously been a learning curve with educating consumers around what the paywall is and why it exists, but here’s my pitch, no BS, directly from an editor: we’re putting more money in our writers pockets than ever. I’ve tripled freelancer payout as Editor to make sure we’re recruiting and supporting the best talent in the industry. So, that’s where your reader dollars are going! 

That’s so interesting to hear Trail Runner is a high converting brand! What have been the reasons users have given for subscribing? Do you find they convert more from the service driven content or more journalistic pieces?

Service-driven content is far and away the highest converting. I find this interesting because self-reported data from our yearly reader survey indicates that readers say they want more long-form storytelling, stories about mid-pack runners and essays, but what they open their wallets for is something completely different.

Even provided that readers engaged enough to take our survey are a pretty self-selecting group, which would definitely skew the data a bit, the signal in the noise of membership data is VERY clear, that people are willing to pay for training plans, expert training advice grounded in science, and stories about Kilian Jornet.

Of course, we still invest in content that doesn't convert members because many stories are important to tell regardless of how many subscriptions they'll sell. For instance, environmental coverage or discussion of women's issues doesn't make a ton of money, but we continue to invest in that coverage because we value that coverage beyond it's ability to make money. 

TR has a high percentage of "engaged members" (people we define as visiting the site 5+ times in a given month), and when surveyed, those folks indicated that they really liked our service content and journalism, and said that they valued our use of multiple sources in articles, and breadth and depth of coverage (also a lot of love for the GaiaGps app).

How has the recent cut of print specifically changed how Trail Runner operates? Have you changed how you approach content creation or generate revenue?

The print magazine hadn’t been a huge revenue generator for us for 8+ years, unfortunately, so we’re no longer attempting to subsidize the production of a print product with digital ad revenue. This was a trend that far preceded my tenure at TR, and while I’m bummed I wasn’t able to reverse it, there’s only so much one gal can do in the face of decades-long industry trends :) 

The biggest change is that we’re no longer beholden to a rigid print schedule or the constraints of making stories and images fit on a page, or in a specific “column” or part of a magazine. It has actually freed us up quite a bit to reallocate time and energy resources to more interesting and fulfilling storytelling that may have been too “risky” to put in the magazine, or that just wasn’t a great fit. 

Now, we’re able to seek out and tell stories just because we want to tell them and not because “well, I need about 2,000 words that are roughly around the theme of adventure by September 30th” because that’s the space we have in our magazine. 

I do miss holding the actual magazine in my hands, but then when I get to spend extra time writing something I’m passionate about, or just not cutting 12 words from a story because I have to, I feel better. 

Print media is something that doesn’t get talked a lot about in media anymore (probably because we keep proclaiming it ‘dead’ or dying). Robin Thurston mentioned that Outside cut print magazines due to declining subscriptions and advertisers decreasing their investments. Yet we see in other verticals print having a comeback (e.g Conde Nast and Meredith).

Why do you think advertisers in trail running decreased their investment in print? And do you think there’s a future for print in trail running? 

I am a crusty, old 29-year-old who still subscribes to many print pubs (New Yorker, Orion, Atlantic), so you'll have a hard time convincing me that it's dead, but it's certainly less viable than it once was. For us, it was a perfect storm of years-long declines in print ad revenue coupled with the more acute economic conditions of post-pandemic 2022.

Outdoor industry ad money is moving online a lot more because you can target a younger audience and more easily measure ROI.

It's hard to tell how much money a sexy two-page ad in a magazine brings in, and so much easier to track clicks on ads, or podcast plays, or even how many click-throughs an influencer gets you. I think in a time of a lot of economic uncertainty, advertisers are looking for a surer bet where they can better track and measure outcomes. 

I don't know if there's a future for print in trail running, and I think there are more interesting questions to ask. Why was print important? In my opinion, it was a great way of better resourcing important stories and emphasizing longevity and quality in storytelling. In my opinion, the process that print demands (more rigorous sourcing, editing, fact-checking, photo-sourcing, etc) is actually more important than the outcome (printing stuff on paper). I'm much more interested in focusing on process than outcome in my work. I think the real magic of print wasn't having something that you could hold in your hand, but the actual labor of working with a team of creative and committed individuals to create something that really reflected our community. I do hope there is a future for that process.

What do you think have been the notable changes to the trail running media landscape since you joined Trail Runner?

It’s definitely gotten more crowded and competitive, which is great! I’m a competitive and highly collaborative person, so it feels like I have more peers, colleagues, collaborators and teammates than ever. I’m a big believer in the market of ideas, and I’m hopeful every newsletter, podcast, website, blog, and content creator is stoked to help push the sport forward and continue to push us to serve the community! I love the energy that’s in the space right now. 

When I first started really paying attention to trail media, I felt like I was hearing a lot of the same voices and ideas. I’m really buoyed by how many different folks are just making cool stuff right now! We need a diversity of voices, opinions and ideas to serve the trail community. There are more young people, women, and athletes making stuff happen. I hope this trend continues!

One particular change has been the growth of trail running creators creating similar content to Trail Runner, but with their own personal take. Has Trail Runner done anything to adapt to these new entrants to the space?

We are leaning (slightly) into more opinion-driven content, and I’m letting my voice in more of my writing, rather than always defaulting to the totally objective journalist voice I’m more comfortable with. But, in some regards, I see the fact that we run less first-person, opinion content as a good thing. Our work is fact-checked and edited for accuracy. More of it comes from a journalistic perspective than a “hot take” perspective, and I’m a fan of slowing things down and not giving into the social media machine unless you have something really valuable to add to the conversation. 

Whenever I’m deciding how to tackle a piece, whether as a writer or editor, I’m less interested in thinking about how other creators would do it, then really trying to stay true to how the story should best be told. I’m always asking myself does my opinion make this piece stronger, or weaker? Does my perspective add, or take away from the narrative? This is my training as a journalist speaking - but I think a lot of folks take the approach of immediately defaulting into their “take” or “voice’ for something. This isn’t necessarily bad or good or anything, I just like to make sure we’re doing things with intention. 

That being said, I’ve been empowered by my staff to write with my voice more, and that has been fun and challenging. My fellow editor, Nick Triolo, comes from a creative writing background too, and I think we’re both pushing each other to take more creative risks and hone our craft and that feels really good. 

More broadly, What do you see as Trail Runner’s role in this evolving trail running media landscape? 

We’ve always focused more on beginner-friendly, sub-ultra service content than other outlets. We’ll continue to lean into that, including the strong SEO infrastructure we’ve been developing to help new folks find us, and fall in love with the sport. Our audience is a bit more generalist, and that perspective guides a lot of our service content. (For the uninitiated, that’s “how-to” type stuff!)

In terms of longer form and more creative pieces, I’m always psyched to work on a story that no one else could tell, or that couldn’t be told in the same way by anyone else. Quirky personalities, emotionally engaging writing, and interesting stories are going to continue to drive a lot of our content! 

As we start to look towards 2023, what does Trail Runner have in store for the next year?

I’m re-launching my podcast, DNF with a season two, which has been a long time coming! I’ve been stalled in fully committing to this project, because with the print magazine on my plate, I just didn’t have the bandwidth this work deserved (and honestly, required). 

TR’s Senior Editor Nick Triolo is writing some absolutely delightful stuff. He can pull the best out of any writer (myself included!) and he sees things and is able to capture them in writing in a way that no one else can. There aren’t many people who are able to capture the eccentricities of the sport in the loving and empathetic way he does, and I’m excited to see him write more and guide Outside Run’s strategy. 

We’re going to use our additional bandwidth to keep telling the stories that excite us as runners and writers and keep listening to our audience and learn to be more responsive to the community. I know that’s a horrifically non-specific answer, but it’s honest. The boring answer is that we’re going to keep doing as much of the low-hanging fruit stuff like SEO-driven content as we need to support the more interesting, deep and creative work that our community deserves!

Love to hear that DNF is coming back! Are you looking expand into any other formats for storytelling e.g short form or long form video?

Outside is definitely expanding into more long and short-form video. You should check out Outside Watch, which we've collaborated with, and who we'll be collaborating with more in the future to provide trail-centric, engaging video content. Nick and I (the other TR editor) are kind of crusty, old, magazine millennials, and we're not much for video-ing, so that will be coming from another corner of our team! You're probably not going to see Nick and I making reels anytime soon 😉