We are well aware that buying branded USB memory sticks is no different and can be a bit of a minefield.  The first problem is choosing the right promotional USB memory stick company but with the product range, service and standard offers that we give all of our customers we don’t think that is a hard decision to make.  The next problem is choosing the style, memory size, quantity and services that you want to make your logo USB flash drives personal for your customers and right for your company.

One of the biggest factors impacting the price of the USB stick is the memory size on the flash drive (to see more information about what impacts the cost of flash drives see one of our previous articles: Why do small quantities of USB flash drives cost so much?).  We find that most customers have problems choosing the right memory size for their USB.  So, if you are one of these customers, we have made three points to consider when choosing the right amount of megabytes or gigabytes in your logo USB flash drive.

1. USB Data Loading – One of the first things to consider is whether you want to have sales and marketing information or any files pre-loaded onto your flash drives.  If this is the case then the size of the files will help you work out the minimum flash drive memory that you need to accommodate for the information size.
2. USB Flash Drive Use – What is the purpose of the promotional USB flash drive?  If they will be used purely as a promotional handout then a 256MB or 512MB flash drive might be appropriate.  However, if the branded flash drives are for customers to use repeatedly or for internal employee use then anything from 1GB up to 16GB or in some cases 32GB.
3. Brand Exposure – Smaller memory flash drives are least likely to be used and sometimes even thrown away by customers once they have viewed the files and discovered that they are a low capacity flash drive.  In contrast larger sized flash drives will be of much more use to customers and most likely be re-used gaining much more brand exposure to the customer and others.

The points above should hopefully help you work out the exact size of the flash drive size that you need for your promotional flash drive and if not, at least point you in the right direction.  That should make at least one decision in buying your perfect custom USB flash drives easy, now you just have to pick the model, services and quantity…

Whilst the printed USB memory stick will do a great job at showing off your brand or logo loading data onto the sticks is a easy and cost effective way to give your customer easy access to your sales, pricing and promotional material.

After all the most expensive part of any branded memory stick is the flash memory housed within the stick itself so it makes sense to make use of it. Any file that can be digitized can be stored on the memory stick. As a good rule of thumb any data that can be stored on your PC or Mac can be stored on the memory stick but its best to stick to file or data types that most people will have the application to open.

Files that are typically pre-loaded onto a memory stick before distribution include things like PDF versions of sales brochures or price lists, PowerPoint presentations, Movie files, audio files and other Microsoft Office files.

These files can either be “locked” onto the memory stick so they can be viewed or copied but not deleted. Or they can be loaded without any protection so that they user can delete them when they have finished with them and then make full use of the available memory on the stick for their own use. There are two schools of thought on the merits of which approach is best but if you do load lots of data onto the memory sticks and then “lock” this data you make it less likely that the stick will be used and therefore negate the benefit of the user carrying it around with them.

Its always easier (and cheaper) to load the data onto the memory sticks during the manufacturing process but if this is not possible then don’t panic because most supplier of branded memory sticks offer a local, post-production data loading service as well albeit this tends to be a little more expensive.

One of the simplest and most effective things to data load onto a memory stick is a link to your website. Loading these links onto the memory sticks is very very simple. If you are loading web links yourself just connect the USB stick to your PC and wait for the PC to allocate a Drive Letter to it and generate the “pop-up” window so that you can see what’s on the stick. At this point you just “drag and drop” the bookmark of your website from your browser to the memory stick and that’s it. What you should then see is a link stored on the memory stick that when clicked will open you web page.

Don’t ignore the opportunities to load data onto your memory sticks even if it’s something as simple as your web site URL. After all you’re paying for the memory storage on a promotional memory stick so you ought to make best use of it.