Guidelines for Auditing and Deprecating Case Studies

·Feb 07, 2025 05:21 PM

I'm working on a project to audit our existing case studies and redo our customer/case study page on the website. I am curious how you all decided when/if to deprecate case studies. Here's what I've come up with so far, but I'd love to know how others have approached this.

Remove case studies and quotes 3 years post publication

Still considering whether we just take them down or ask the customer if they'd be willing to refresh. Asking for a refresh on a case study hasn't been very successful for me in the past.
Consider leaving up case studies post 3 years if they still have strategic value (logo, valuable industry, still used frequently, etc.)

Remove case studies and quotes if the customer churns

Do not automatically remove a case study if the person quoted leaves the company UNLESS requested by the customer

10 comments

· Sorted by Oldest

Jeanne Nitschke (Talbot)
·
Hi Emily Coleman In the past, I've set it at 2 years. Made anonymous if account churned, or removed. If a contact left, we removed their name and just used their title.
Dan Kalmar
·
Two vs three years can depend a lot on your company. Have your products all completely changed (with many deprecated or not in focus)? Probably sunset those posts (or update). But if the case study is still relevant and there's no date on it, I personally think it's fine to keep. It's not bad from an SEO perspective to have that up. But yes, if it's obviously very dated (and you have enough newer ones to fall back on), you can cull. As for updates not working for you, do you mean customers just don't agree to an update? In my mind, that's fine. Worst case, it's hopefully just another touchpoint with a customer. Best case, they agree to do it. The updates can also be pitched as pretty low-lift. It's great if you can get a full 45-minute interview, but depending on how small the tweaks are, it can just be a 20-minute call to connect with the customer and get some details to update it.
Jeanne Nitschke (Talbot)
·
One of my former employers still has case studies and customer videos on their website that I created in 2005-2017. That's not a typo. 😵‍💫
3
Dan Kalmar
·
I mean, I guess if nothing has changed in the company since 2005...
Emily Coleman
·
Dan Kalmar in my previous role, I was never able to get a customer to agree to a refreshed case study. Either they didn't respond, they had been acquired by another company and that company didn't want to participate, the customer churned, or the internal champion had moved on, so the relationship wasn't as strong. I haven't tried asking for a refresh at the company I'm with now, so that experience may be totally different.
💯1
Emily Coleman
·
Jeanne Nitschke (Talbot) yeah, I had reps and PMMs trying to use quotes from about that far back, too. It's wild.
Charlotte Weiss
·
We're currently going through the same process, but a lot of people want to keep old case studies up because they're being used in campaigns/perform well through SEO. For now, I'm doing it in stages. Stage one is delete any that are from an org that aren't a customer anymore, as no one can fight that 😄 Next step is to read the ones that are over 3 years old and see if they need a refresh or are obsolete. And then that's where the hard part starts: convincing sales and field marketing that we need to take them down as they're just taking up space.
Christine Newman
·
Our approach is similar to what you’ve outlined. We do sometimes consider extending the life of stories depending on how many other stories we currently have for a particular product, how dated it comes across (eg is it talking about Covid, etc), and if the product functionality discussed hasn’t evolved so much that it’s really not relevant anymore. For refresh, we mostly consider asking those customers that are big logos and/or we know have done something compelling since. And we don’t remove if someone quoted has left unless the customer requests. I’m not sure we’ve ever actually had anyone ask for that even.
Sarah Miller
·
For refreshes, I've gotten some success by using updates from internal sources (CSM or other already-tracked measures) and sending the customer the rewrite with a bit of flattery ("your story has been so well received, that we wanted to add an update. It really stands the test of time, etc.") and an offer of "is there anything else you're proud of that you'd like to add?"
❤️2
Emily Coleman
·
Sarah Miller I really like that idea. I always love gassing up customers.

Guidelines for Auditing and Deprecating Case Studies | CMAweekly Customer Marketing and Advocacy Slack

Jeanne Nitschke (Talbot)
·
Hi Emily Coleman In the past, I've set it at 2 years. Made anonymous if account churned, or removed. If a contact left, we removed their name and just used their title.
Dan Kalmar
·
Two vs three years can depend a lot on your company. Have your products all completely changed (with many deprecated or not in focus)? Probably sunset those posts (or update). But if the case study is still relevant and there's no date on it, I personally think it's fine to keep. It's not bad from an SEO perspective to have that up. But yes, if it's obviously very dated (and you have enough newer ones to fall back on), you can cull. As for updates not working for you, do you mean customers just don't agree to an update? In my mind, that's fine. Worst case, it's hopefully just another touchpoint with a customer. Best case, they agree to do it. The updates can also be pitched as pretty low-lift. It's great if you can get a full 45-minute interview, but depending on how small the tweaks are, it can just be a 20-minute call to connect with the customer and get some details to update it.
Jeanne Nitschke (Talbot)
·
One of my former employers still has case studies and customer videos on their website that I created in 2005-2017. That's not a typo. 😵‍💫
3
Dan Kalmar
·
I mean, I guess if nothing has changed in the company since 2005...
Emily Coleman
·
Dan Kalmar in my previous role, I was never able to get a customer to agree to a refreshed case study. Either they didn't respond, they had been acquired by another company and that company didn't want to participate, the customer churned, or the internal champion had moved on, so the relationship wasn't as strong. I haven't tried asking for a refresh at the company I'm with now, so that experience may be totally different.
💯1
Emily Coleman
·
Jeanne Nitschke (Talbot) yeah, I had reps and PMMs trying to use quotes from about that far back, too. It's wild.
Charlotte Weiss
·
We're currently going through the same process, but a lot of people want to keep old case studies up because they're being used in campaigns/perform well through SEO. For now, I'm doing it in stages. Stage one is delete any that are from an org that aren't a customer anymore, as no one can fight that 😄 Next step is to read the ones that are over 3 years old and see if they need a refresh or are obsolete. And then that's where the hard part starts: convincing sales and field marketing that we need to take them down as they're just taking up space.
Christine Newman
·
Our approach is similar to what you’ve outlined. We do sometimes consider extending the life of stories depending on how many other stories we currently have for a particular product, how dated it comes across (eg is it talking about Covid, etc), and if the product functionality discussed hasn’t evolved so much that it’s really not relevant anymore. For refresh, we mostly consider asking those customers that are big logos and/or we know have done something compelling since. And we don’t remove if someone quoted has left unless the customer requests. I’m not sure we’ve ever actually had anyone ask for that even.
Sarah Miller
·
For refreshes, I've gotten some success by using updates from internal sources (CSM or other already-tracked measures) and sending the customer the rewrite with a bit of flattery ("your story has been so well received, that we wanted to add an update. It really stands the test of time, etc.") and an offer of "is there anything else you're proud of that you'd like to add?"
❤️2
Emily Coleman
·
Sarah Miller I really like that idea. I always love gassing up customers.