Whilst we’re currently experiencing an upward “blip” in the pricing caused by the weakness of the Pound (GBP) against the Dollar (USD) the overall trend is downwards. As the price falls, particularly for lower capacity drives, the opportunities for the Sales and Promotions sector really start to open up. All of a sudden branded memory sticks pre-loaded with movie trailers, music files, dynamic links to web sites and loads of sales material are a viable option to post out to prospective customers.

Whilst the demise of Direct Mail has long been predicted it continues to be a key part of many companies marketing plans and increasingly we expect companies to use entry level branded memory sticks as part of these campaigns. One of the challenges facing any company wanting to post out branded memory sticks to a client base is handling the logistics of sourcing the printed memory sticks, arranging for the data to be loaded onto the sticks and then finding a company to handle the fulfilment of the mailer.

At USB2U we can now offer a complete end-to-end service, which starts at the design stage of the memory stick and ends in the outbound fulfilment of the printed memory sticks and accompanying marketing pack to your customers. The fulfilment service is managed in-house and leverages the packing and distribution infrastructure we have in place for our sister company – USBNow

USBNow supplies a wide range of USB products to thousands of customers every month and has sent out around 500,000 orders over the past few years so your orders will be in safe hands.

For details of the fulfilment services including the range of delivery options, reporting packs and pricing please speak to your account manager or call us Free on 0800 008 7079.

Standard branded memory sticks were never going to be able to do the job because whilst they are great at showing off a brand the challenge with BFGoodrich was to go the extra mile and come up with something that was not only visually excellent but was also a tactile representation of what they do and what they stand for.

Working with the BFGoodrich team we came up with the idea of a rubber USB wristband. These flash drives are a little different because they wrap around the users wrist just like a bracelet. They relatively light, easy to wear and look a lot like the charity wristbands that you see a lot of these days. But, for BFGoodrich the idea was to develop the wristband and create a unique mould so that the finished product was not only rubber but had a tyre tread on the surface.  The wristband was then produced in black and with their logo on and the end result looks stunning. In fact it looks just like a piece of tyre tread fashioned into a wristband!

Whilst not to everyone taste there is no doubting the innovation behind it and the “wow” factor these custom memory sticks create. What BGGoodrich have shown is that with a little imagination you can come up with a really interesting, imaginative and eye-catching custom USB solution.

Custom memory sticks can be fashioned in 2-D and 3-D shapes and manufactured from a range of different and flexible materials. The incremental cost of a fully bespoke drive is not much more than a standard factory model but you do need to allow a little more time for the production because the factory will want time to produce physical samples and proofs for your approval. If you can afford the time and you can build it into your project plan then custom sticks are definitely worth the wait.

The Freephone contact number is 0800 008 7079. If you want to talk through your requirements, speak to our design team about your mock-ups or proofs then simply give us a call. Remember at the moment we’ve still got a special offer running where we’ll cover the cost of pantone matching the branded memory stick body colour on a number of our popular ranges.

We know that some of our customer prefer to use their mobile phones to contact us and that some operators will charge for an 0800 Freephone number. If you’d prefer to call us on a landline you can still contact us on 01604 685040.

The two latest customers to commission these custom USB eggs were Teesside University and the highly regarded video games design and production company Alien After All.

Teesside University wanted something to bring their student packs to life. The student packs they had produced were themed around “cracking the potential” but in paper format they were deemed a bit flat and boring. The answer was have a bespoke USB Memory stick in the shape of a egg – corny = possibly, memorable = yes! This was then loaded with bespoke course information that students could pick up as they toured the university.

Alien After All are the company behind the design and development of one of the latest Nintendo DSi Games – DoDoGo. The game breaks new territory, it’s a download game packed full of captivating missions, bonus level challenges and promises great fun for gamers of all ages. One of the key characters are the little dinosaur eggs and the custom USB’s commissioned by Alien After All have been manufactured in the shape of the eggs. These are ideal give-aways to support the launch of the game. Expect them to become collectors items of the future so preparing your own little egg treasure hunt might not be a bad idea!

Both Teesside University and Alien After All have illustrated just how well a custom USB stick can fit into an overall advertising and marketing plan. All it takes is a little imagination and a little bit of time in your project plan to get them manufactured.

If eggs are not your thing don’t worry because custom flash drives can be produced in pretty much any 2-D or 3-D shape and in a variety of materials. If you are interested then the best thing is to give us a call and talk through your ideas. Our in-house designs team will then work up some concepts for your approval and give you the all-important prices and lead times.

The expression can be applied equally to many other walks of life including the print industry. If you print an item using low quality artwork, particularly artwork that has been digitally compressed then the printed results will be very poor.

Today most digital cameras and web pages use compressed images with the most popular format being JPEG (named after the Joint Photographic Experts Group who created the standard). JPEG images are typically compressed to a ration of 10:1, in other words as much as 90% of the image content is removed or lost during the compression process. This process is known as “lossy” and as the name implies when an original image is converted into a JPEG file many of the original elements of the image cannot be recovered. To the naked eye, particularly when viewed on a web page, there will be no perceptible difference to the image pre and post compression.

Compressed JPEG image files are ideal for web pages because they are smaller and therefore load more quickly but they are rarely suitable for print work because the printers will be unable to create sharp images, crisp lines or graduated colours.

If you try and use a JPEG image to print a memory stick then the end results are likely to be “blotchy” and “blurred” and most professional suppliers will simply reject the artwork preferring instead not to produce inferior products.

When ordering printed memory sticks its recommended that you supply artwork in one of the following formats:

• EPS (Encapsulated Postscript)
• TIFF (Tagged Image File Format)
• RAW (Raw Image Formats)
• Vector File Formats

These image formats will allow your logo, design or artwork to be rendered properly, printed correctly and printed to sharpness you would expect. What you cannot do is take a poor JPEG image (that you have for example simply “grabbed from a web page”) and convert it to an EPS file.

If in any doubt talk to the suppliers designer or get your designer or design agency to talk directly to the suppliers designer. Its worth spending the time in the early stages of your order to get it right rather than be disappointed with the results when the printed memory sticks arrive on your desk!

More and more companies are pre-loading data on their promotional sticks because it’s a great way to easily and cheaply distribute large amounts of sales material and media files. Lets face it if you’ve purchased memory sticks as a give-away it makes no sense to also print, transport and distribute loads of sales brochures, press releases, copies of slides etc. Load them onto the memory stick.. Pre-loading data makes economic and environmental sense and the more you load onto the stick the better the cost benefit case to purchase the memory stick will be.

Pre-loading data does call for you to be organised. The cheapest way to get the data loaded onto the stick is during the manufacturing process but this means your data will need to be ready around the time your place your order with your supplier. If you can’t get your data ready in time (and sometimes you’re going to be reliant on 3^rd parties, particularly if you’re pre-loading speaker notes for a conference) then don’t despair. It is possible to pre-load the data after manufacture just expect to pay a little more for it to be done.

The maximum amount of data you pre-load is limited by the amount of storage space on the memory sticks you’re buying. So if you are buying 1GB sticks you could load up to around 950MB of data. You won’t have access to the full 1GB because memory sticks need some space to create the file structures and data tables for the data you’re loading.

There are also practical considerations to consider as well including how you get the data to your supplier and you supplier gets the data to their factory in China. Small files can be emailed or FTP’d but very large files may need to be supplied on a CD or DVD and then sent by carrier to the factory. This adds to the time you need to allow for branded memory sticks to be produced

Something else to consider is whether any of the files you pre-load onto the sticks should run automatically when the USB stick used. This can be a great way of launching an application, presentation slides or movie files. It really will ensure that the user of the flash drive not only sees, but also is forced to interact with your content. Before you commit to the use of auto run files there are some important things to consider:

1. Autorun files have to be loaded onto the memory sticks during the manufacturing process.
2. Autorun files cannot be deleted by the user.
3. Autorun files can be considered “intrusive” and “annoying” because they get in the way of the general day-to-day use of the memory stick. Remember they the autorun application will have to load and launch every time the stick is used and this can put people off using the memory stick to save and carry their own data on.
4. If used on company network the autorun might not work because some companies don’t allow autorun files (executables) to run on PC’s attached to their network.
5. If an autorun file is only suitable for Win PC’s (XP, VISTA, Seven etc.) then  the content may not run on a Mac – thorough testing is advised.

So in summary, branded memory sticks are a great promotional product, pre-loading data on the stick is an excellent and cost effective idea and in some circumstance autoruns add value but use them sparingly and be aware of the potential issues

Exhibiting at a trade show is typically a pretty large investment in terms of money, time and manpower and as such it’s critical that this commitment is fully optimised. Whilst lots of energy tends to get put into the location of the stand in the exhibition hall, the stand design, the lighting of the stand and who’s going to staff the stand sometimes the little, but nevertheless important, things like giveaways and collateral for the show tend to get overlooked.

Whilst an exciting and innovative promotional tool or giveaway designed to draw people to the stand won’t make or break a show it will certainly help to maximise your investment. When you’re competing for the attention of potential customers against hundreds of other exhibitors its key that you equip you sales team with all the tools they need and a giveaway that pulls people into the stand works.

Your challenge is to decide what’s the best product for you and for your target audience. What really is going to deliver the greatest footfall onto your stand and what’s going to get your product and company to stand out from all the others that will be visited during the show?  After all we all know that at the end of most shows the attendees leave with tired legs, heavy hearts and laden down with carrier bags full of brochures and leaflets.  What you have to do during the show is “wow” them, ideally secure an order but failing that get them interested enough so that when they are back at home or work they recall your company and follow up with an enquiry.

There are lots of inexpensive giveaways that work on one level like printed bags which double as a “walking advert” for your brand or printed usb pens, which cost pennies. There are even sweets that can be printed with your brand and help get people to approach your stand. The problem with these is that they are either eaten at the event or thrown away after the event! With all of these simple ideas there is very little carry through post the event, there is no incentive to use them on an on-going basis and they don’t deliver much information about you’re company or products.

One product that is growing in popularity for use at tradeshows is the promotional USB flash drive. Whilst flash drives might initially seem too expensive to use a “giveaway” bear in mind that if you pre-load all of your sales material onto the promotional flash drive you can reduce significantly your brochure print costs and your storage and transportation costs. Because you can load data onto the flash drives right up to the start of the show (and even during the show if you wish) you can be much more flexible in terms of what brochures and data you take with you to the show. More fundamentally people like to be given memory sticks and they will keep them and use them after the show.

The on-going use of a printed usb flash drive means after the show means your brand will continue to get exposed and your sales material will be there every time the flash drive is inserted into a PC.  So, in terms of drawing prospects to your stand and delivering sales leads to your company branded flash drives deliver.

With so many resellers now choosing USB2U as their partner of choice we have decided to put in place a formal reseller programme. This programme is designed to formalise what we have been doing successfully since 2002 and now includes some additional features, which we believe will allow our resellers to win more business and generate more profits.

Resellers choose USB2U because we work with our partners to ensure they are successful. We give them the tools and prices they need to win business and we are incredibly respectful of the relationship they have with their client(s). We hold stock of blank memory sticks in the UK and we can turnaround orders for printed flash drives for our resellers and their customers in 48hrs. Coupled with this we have our own in-house design team which allows us to provide mock-ups, proofs and concepts within a matter of hours.

Above all we have an absolute passion about branded and promotional memory sticks that people find infectious. This passion translates into a focus on delivering great customer service to all of our resellers. Whilst we know price and margins are key we also know that we and our partners are judged on our collective ability to deliver on our promises and that just one failure can lead to the loss of the business and the relationship to a competitor.

The key features of the USB2U reseller program are:

• Named account manager who will look after you and get to understand your business and your requirements.
• Competitive and discounted pricing
• Turnover rebates based on each years business (minimum thresholds need to be achieved to qualify)
• 30-day trade terms (subject to credit application and approval)
• Free design support, mock-ups and creative consultancy on bespoke USB jobs
• Artwork optionally delivered embedded in your own branded PDF client approval documents.
• Free origination
• Free pantone matching on a wide range of memory sticks
• Free samples
• Free delivery to any UK address (mainland only – deliveries over water will be charged at cost)
• Discounted data loading service

If you’re interested in becoming a USB2U approved reseller then simply send an email to partners@usb2u.co.uk and we’ll get right back to you with details of how to get started.

Why? Well, several events have come together to create a huge supply vacuum the most notable of which are:

	Apple’s iPhone uses Flash Memory chips and market forecasts suggest they will sell around 33million iPhones in 2010 and Apple have apparently been very canny with their suppliers and “locked them in” with guaranteed future orders. Who can blame them after all the iPhone has been a runaway success and they have the cash reserves behind them to ensure forward continuity of supply.
	Sales of mobile phones that contain NAND (memory) flash chips are expected to top 700 million in 2010.
	The success of other consumer products like electronic book readers, camcorders and of course the ubiquitous flash memory stick continues to grow apace.
	Unusually this year many employees of the smaller support factories/companies have been slow to return from their Chinese New Year holidays and this has resulted in production backlogs.

For the manufactures like Toshiba, Micron Technology, Samsung, Hynix and Intel this is explosion in demand is great news but it will put a huge amount of pressure on their production capabilities this year just to keep up.

For suppliers of branded USB memory sticks and their partner factories the challenge will be ensure the continuity of supply during 2010 and to ensure this supply is at a price that the market will bear. Expect some turbulence in the supply this year and as usual shop around to ensure you get the best deal you can and in timeframes that suit your project, event or activity.

If you simply want some promotional give-aways for a large consumer show or you’re looking to raise the general awareness of your brand/product then memory sticks might not be right for you. Equally, if your target audience are unlikely to have access to PC’s or have any little or no requirement for portable data storage solutions then memory sticks are unlikely to be appropriate.

Even the cheapest 64Mb branded memory stick is going to be quite a bit more expensive than a branded key-ring, a pen with a logo printed on or a packet of sweets or mints with your company name on. These small gestures/tokens are great to have on a stand to hand out en-masse, they will help to draw people to your stand and they’ll engender some basic form of recall and association with your company but memory sticks are in a different league.

If you’ve targeting business clients, partners, and journalists or perhaps you sell high value products to high net worth individuals then branded memory sticks should be on your list of candidate promotional items. Pretty much anyone who uses a PC will be familiar with the benefits of a USB memory stick and will be delighted to be given one (particularly free of charge)!

The real beauty of a memory stick is that you can pre-load the stick with your sales data, your price lists, links to your web site, media files (videos, music etc) and you can even protect this data and/or make it run automatically when the memory stick is used. Whilst you could argue you could achieve the same results with a CD or DVD the reality is these CD/DVD’s rarely get used/played and more likely will end up in the bin. On the other hand flash drives offer real convenience to the user so they have an incentive to use them. As such the content is far more likely to be read and viewed and because memory sticks can be carried around easily on a lanyard or key-ring your brand will get on-going exposure.

In the context of the additional value memory sticks deliver they are not expensive but they need to be purchased for the right event/audience. If you do pre-load data onto the memory sticks instead of printing catalogues, brochures, press releases etc. you can save yourself a small fortune and make life easier for yourself in terms of transportation and storage. Used smartly printed memory sticks will pay for themselves in a way in which an inert cap or mug simply can’t.