As a manufacturer's representative or distributor, you use manufacturers' catalog pages and other printed material to support your sales effort. To provide instant service to your customers, these documents are typically posted on websites as PDF, MS Word, web pages, or files of other types. Your customers then link to the documents and download them to their computer.

Providing these documents on your website is a valuable service to your customers, but it is also time consuming to keep current. Two problems can happen when information becomes obsolete--both create a poor company image which can affect sales.

1. Obsolete Information — If you copy manufacturer's documents such as PDF catalog files and brochures to your web server to display on your website, your information may well be out-of-date, sometimes in a matter of weeks. A recent Cattail Survey of resellers' websites indicates that, on average, electronic catalogs and brochures posted to websites are over 2 generations old!

2. Broken Links — Your website may link directly to the electronic files found on manufacturers' website. This eliminates Problem #1 above. However, if a manufacturer's webmaster changes the filenames or location of the files you have linked to from your website, your customers will get those frustrating "404 File Not Found" errors, indicating a broken link. Our research indicates that manufacturers change the filenames of files on their servers regularly as they update information.

In both cases above, annoyed customers are left with the impression that your company isn't paying attention to its own website, and aren't aware that problems exist. Ouch!

Cattail has the solution! — Cattail DLMS

Cattail DLMS can solve both problems and provide you with an economical way to create or maintain a product line section on your website--one that is automatically updated with the latest information.

The Cattail DLMS maintains a large database of links to manufacturers' electronic documents in a central database. Each link in the database is tested daily. If a link is broken, it is reported to Cattail staff via email. We then locate the correct file (catalog page, brochure, etc.) and update the database, which in turn fixes your broken link..

Key features of DLMS:

• Saves you money
• Saves you time
• Creates a professional corporate image
• Monitored and maintained by Cattail, requiring no input by your webmaster.
• Links are checked daily
• Documents are stored on a central server to avoid document obsolescence on your server.

Visit our Pricing Page to learn about the subscription fee and implementation packages designed for your particular needs.

If you are a webmaster, visit our DLMS page for webmasters to obtain technical information.

We believe this service adds great value to your website and will help sell your products. Contact us for more information about Cattail DLMS.

Example websites utilizing DLMS:

Advanced Filtration Systems TX

Air Filter Solutions CO