Welcome to The Publisher Newsletter, by Media Voices. The Publisher Podcast Awards have closed, but we're keeping Publisher Podcast Hero of the Year open for entries until Friday 28th March. We'd love to hear who's making a difference to podcasting to you as a publisher, whether you've got a super freelance producer or a top audio strategist in-house. This category is FREE TO ENTER and we'd especially love to see some entries from under-represented groups.

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Tips for a successful podcast launch from Deutsche Welle’s Don’t Drink The Milk

No matter how passionate you are about your podcast topic, it means nothing if you don’t solve the problem of promoting it. With Don’t Drink The Milk, the DW team have found numerous ways around that issue.

Don’t Drink The Milk has a leg up on its competitor history and culture podcasts; an idiosyncratic name.

The title comes from an obscure alternate name for the parlour game ‘Telephone’ – known variously as Russian Whispers, Chinese Whispers etc. As the name for a podcast that examines lesser-known aspects of cultural history, it is evocative and emblematic. It encapsulates the ‘othering’ of foreign cultures, the exploration of little-known facts, and the quirky nature of the show itself.

But a memorable name isn’t a guarantee of success. As the team at Deutsche Welle – the  German state-owned public broadcaster – found, a successful podcast launch is dependent on a number of criteria.

From the top

The podcast, now in its second season, was launched as a commission from the Deutsche Welle culture team. On this week’s episode of The Publisher Podcast, its Senior Producer Sam Baker explained that, while the team ultimately went with a format and focus that they would choose to listen to even if they weren’t producing it, it was also based on the host Rachel Stewart’s pre-existing work.

Baker explained: “[Rachel Stewart] had previously done a YouTube video series called ‘Meet the Germans’, which was very, very popular, but it was about quirky German cultural things. She unpacked that in a really fun and light-hearted way. So I think we wanted to take that same energy – and she was ready for a new project and wanted to work on a podcast.”

As a happy corollary of having Stewart come on board, Baker says that the DW team was able to take advantage of her audience for promotion. By leveraging that existing audience – which they knew had significant crossover in terms of interest with Don’t Drink The Milk – they were able to launch with a pre-activated audience. In an industry where cold starts are often the norm, that advantage cannot be overstated.

But as with a memorable name, a pre-existing audience alone does not guarantee long-term success. Baker said that one of the most energy-intensive but valuable activities she undertook in the early lifecycle of the podcast was chasing down cross-promotion opportunities with other podcasts: 

“You do all this hard work [but] if no one’s listening, it feels like ‘what are we doing this for?’ So we wanted to find that audience. And it was just a lot of reaching out to folks I knew who have podcasts and newsletters, who have other podcasts that we could do promo swaps with. Just set aside a few hours each week and keep reaching out.”

Promote smarter, not harder

In addition, the Don’t Drink The Milk team leveraged the broadcaster’s other properties to promote the podcast. The team made a video trailer that went on to DW Television, for example, and could be used on other platforms like Instagram and YouTube. That same video trailer also was featured for a while at Frankfurt Airport.

She noted, however, that promotion is not a one-and-done activity. While getting featured on major podcast platforms was a huge boon for the DW team, it did not mark the finish line for promotional activity.

She explained: “Honestly, getting featured on Apple was probably the biggest boost to our audience, which we so appreciate, and was awesome. And I think it’s one of those things that is just ongoing, and I don’t mind doing it, but I am happy it paid off for the show.”

Finding headroom for growth

Much podcast discovery now takes place off podcast-specific platforms. Over the past few years YouTube – the sleeping giant of the podcasting world – has woken up to its potential.

As a result of its newfound focus, the line between podcast and panel show has all but evaporated. Many podcasts are now simply the audio of a video interview, clipped out and republished on podcast platforms.

That works for many podcasts, but for documentary- and narrative podcasts, it’s not so easy. Baker explained that the DW team is looking for creative ways to do video based on Don’t Drink The Milk that doesn’t just repackage the audio: “[Video] just makes it much more complicated. However, we have experimented with – and are hoping to do in future seasons – shorter video versions of our episodes. [They’re] not the episodes per se, but the topic. 

“Our podcasts have been living on the DW history and culture YouTube page. So it would be for that audience but in a more accessible, shorter form, so maybe a six or eight minute video.”

Don’t neglect community

Podcasting is a broadcast medium – but that doesn’t mean that the community that grows around them can be ignored. Using audiences as advocates is practically a necessity in 2025, where communities self-organise on platforms like Reddit or Discord to discuss the new episodes. 

Baker explains that, having come from YouTube, the host Rachel Stewart knew the importance of community building for podcast promotion: “As much as I think about promotion, she thinks about community, because she comes from that world of YouTube.

“It shocks me how often and thoughtfully she answers comments online all the time. To me that feels like so much extra work, but she genuinely really cares about people who watch her videos or listen to her podcast episodes. And I think that’s really essential to building community – for people to feel like they’re heard and they’re part of that community.”

All of which is to say that the twin problems of podcast discovery and promotion haven’t gone anywhere. Don’t Drink The Milk started with some advantages that many other podcasters will not – but that can be emulated by publishers looking to launch new podcasts of their own. Our industry is guilty of seeking to find the silver bullet for these issues, or delegating them to third parties like Apple or Spotify, but the reality is that many solutions must be harnessed together to maximise those opportunities.

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