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Posts Tagged ‘engraved’

Should You Put Serial Numbers On Your USB Flash Drives

Wednesday, October 5th, 2011

Are you interested in keeping track of the USB flash drives you give out? Do you need to associate every USB Drive to a specific person or company? Perhaps you’re giving out sticks that are pre-loaded with sensitive pricing or perhaps they’ve got embargoed press release information on them that must not fall into the wrong hands.

USB Sticks With Serial Numbers

USB Sticks With Serial Numbers

If you’re a school or university and you’re giving the sticks away to students then you might want something on the stick that “binds” them to student – at least this way if the USB stick is lost (and subsequently found) it can be repatriated to the student who lost it. There’s nothing worse then losing precious coursework stored on a USB flash drive!

An easy way to achieve this is to get a unique serial number printed or engraved on every USB stick and record who you give them to. Engraving costs pennies or nothing depending on how many sticks you buy and it is a simple but effective solution. There are various places a serial number can be put on the sticks including the main body, on the USB connector and the side of the body.

If you are planning to pre-loaded sensitive data onto the USB memory sticks then as well as knowing who has been given which stick you might want to consider password protecting the data or even putting some form of encryption solution on the USB memory stick.

Numbered USB Sticks

Numbered USB Sticks

Some companies that distribute their sales brochures and distributor price lists on USB flash drives put serial numbers on them not so much to track them if they get lost but to create different “batches” of USB sticks (determined by a range of serial numbers) onto which they then pre-load different prices lists (with differing discount structures etc.). When your faced with 500 USB sticks they all look the same so a serial number is just a bit of a safety net to make sure the right person/company gets the right information – you also have an audit trail of who’s been sent what.

The images here show every USB flash drive uniquely marked with a serial numbers but it is just as easy to personalise every drive with a persons name if preferred – you just need to provide a spreadsheet with these details when you place any order.

Don’t forget at the moment we’re offering free 4 colour printing, free data-loading,  free gift boxes and free delivery in the UK (we do ship anywhere in the world but we charge for International shipments at cost)

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Should You Put Serial Numbers On Your USB Flash Drives

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New Mini Twister USB Flash Drive Set to Make A Big Impact

Friday, September 2nd, 2011

Don’t be put off by its size because the new Mini Twister USB Flash Drive packs a huge punch in terms of impact and quality. At just over 3cm in length its about half the size of most “standard” USB flash drives but it’s still capable of supporting up to 16GB of data in what is arguably one of the most elegant designs we’ve seen in a while.

Mini USB Twister - Engraved

Mini USB Twister - Engraved

The outer case/clip of the Mini Twister (the bit that rotates to protect the USB connector) is made from a relatively thick, heavy and highly polished metal that takes engraving really well. The combination of the size of the drive, the design and the high quality finish of the product is likely to see this drive emerge as a firm favourite.

It’s too early to tell if the new “Mini Twister” will challenge the Classic Twister USB Flash Drive. The Classic model has

Classic and Mini Twister

Classic and Mini Twister

been around for almost a decade now and to this day remains the number one best selling promotional USB flash drive by some margin accounting for well over half of all promotional flash drives sold into the promotional and corporate sector. The reasons for the Twisters success are:

  • It has no removable cap to lose – the outer “clip” rotates (or twists, hence the name) around the body of the drive to protect the USB connector.
  • It’s available in a wide range of body colours and the body colour can be pantone matched if the standard colours are not suitable. Some companies and schools will order a their USB twisters in a range of different colours so they can supply different departments or school years with a particular colour.
  • Because they are so popular they’re manufactured in huge volumes and this keeps the cost relatively low. Typically the classic Twister USB flash drive will be the cheapest model available from most suppliers although you may have to pay a little more if you want them produced in your own colour (pantone matched body shell).
  • Keyring and lanyards are easy to attach to the Twister Classic and compliment the drive really well.
  • If you over order the Twister or you want to change the branding/image printed on them then its relatively easy to remove the clip and replace it with a new clip printed with new artwork – this way you’re only paying for the cost of a replacement clip and not the memory (the bit that costs the money)
  • It’s light, relatively small and really easy to use.

The mini Twister USB drive has many of the attributes of the “Classic” version but in a smaller, neater package (albeit it does not have the colour range) so it will be interesting to see how much of the market it can take from the larger, older version.

If you’d like a sample of the new Mini Twister just give us a call and we’ll pop one in the post to you.

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New Mini Twister USB Flash Drive Set to Make A Big Impact

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Clip On USB Flash Drives That Are Hard To Shake Off

Friday, July 22nd, 2011

Lots of schools and companies are buying USB flash drives to hand out to the students, to promote their business or to develop their brand. Whatever your reasons for buying them you want them to be functional (to work as a USB flash drive) but you also need them to reflect your school or company’s brand values. Choosing the right style of USB flash drive for your project can be daunting!

Examples of the Clip USB Flash Drive

Examples of the Clip USB Flash Drive

There are loads of different styles, colours and shapes of USB flash drive on the market today and most are easily customised (printed or engraved). Most are manufactured from plastic, some from metal and a smaller number from wood (bamboo) or PVC. Some have a cap, others “rotate” or “swivel” to protect the USB connector, some come with a lanyard or key ring attachment and others are secured by slipping them onto your wrist (USB wristbands) or clipping them onto your pocket (USB pens).

Just to make the decision process more interesting/challenging there are lots of new models of USB Flash Drives entering the market weekly and one that has already attracted lots of interest is the USB Clip. This is a small, tactile, metal USB flash drive that, as the name implies “clips” onto to work folder, a pocket, or a physical DM mailer pack.

Clip Drive - Shirt Pocket

Clip Drive - Shirt Pocket

The Clip Drive is only 38mm long and at 12mm wide it’s as small as you can go with a USB flash drive because the whole thing is the width of a standard USB connector.

These Clip Drives are typically engraved but they can be printed if preferred albeit engraving tends to be a bit more resilient to the everyday knocks and bumps there drive get in daily use.

Despite their small form factor they are available in all the standard memory sizes from 512MB all the way up to 16GB. Whatever size you buy make sure you take full advantage of the memory and storage space you are paying for by pre-loading your own sales material, brochures or PowerPoint slides on them before you hand them out. Most schools and companies are doing this now not least because any savings you can make by not printing these documents can help towards offsetting the cost of buying the USB flash drives.

If you’re interested in the Clip Drive then pop onto our web site and fill out the on-line quote form or just give our sales team a call on our Freephone number. Send us your artwork and we’ll even mock up various versions for you free of charge!

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Clip On USB Flash Drives That Are Hard To Shake Off

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Putting Serial Numbers On Your USB Memory Sticks

Thursday, June 30th, 2011

Lets face it the vast majority of USB memory sticks that are handed out by companies these days are primarily given away to promote the brand that’s printed on the USB stick. Occasionally companies will load them with sales material (brochures, price lists, tech sheets, movie clips and links to web sites) but more often than not the USB sticks are just used as a “giveaway”.

USB Memory Sticks with Serial Numbers

USB Memory Sticks with Serial Numbers

As giveaways they work well because they have a high perceived value and the people they are given to will typically use them to store and carry their own data around with them – it’s this regular and repeated use that gets the company’s brand exposed over and over again and the fact that the brand is associated with something that has real personal value helps to build strong emotional ties to the brand.

If sensitive data is pre-loaded onto the USB memory sticks it’s a good idea to consider password protecting the data or even putting some form of encryption solution of the USB memory stick. You might also want to associate every USB stick you give out to a specific person or company and the easiest way to do this is get a unique serial number printed on every stick and record who you give each one to.

USB Serial Number

USB Serial Number

Some companies that distribute their sales brochures and distributor and reseller price lists on USB flash drives do this not so much to track them if they get lost but to create different “batches” of USB sticks (determined by a range of serial numbers) onto which they then pre-load different prices lists (with differing discount structures etc.). When your faced with 500 USB sticks they all look the same so a serial number is just a bit of a safety net to make sure the right person/company gets the right information – you also have an audit trail of who’s been sent what.

For companies that give flash drives out to their employees of schools and universities that hand them out to students, serial numbers are a handy way of recording who has been given which USB flash drive – this way if they get lost (and they will) they can be returned to the rightful owner.

Whilst the examples here show every USB drive uniquely marked with a serial numbers they could instead be engraved a persons or companies name if preferred – you just need to provide a spreadsheet with these details when you place any order

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Putting Serial Numbers On Your USB Memory Sticks

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Some Cracking Examples of Branded USB Memory Sticks

Thursday, September 16th, 2010

At USB2U we’ve been fortunate over the years to work with some great clients and some fantastic brands. One thing that makes a great customer stand out is their ability to instinctively know which USB product will work best with their brand. They’ll often have very clear ideas of what they want, how their brand should be portrayed and typically they’ll push us to deliver something just that little bit special.

Mulbeery USB

Mulberry USB

That’s not to say that we don’t value or appreciate every branded USB memory stick we produce or the business kindly entrusted to us by our customers its just when you’ve produced millions of USB flash drives its quite nice to be challenged to go just that little bit further. The examples illustrated on this page are, in our opinion, some great examples of top quality branded USB drives. The customer has either requested something interesting in terms of colour, packaging or product and in every case the end results look stunning and are a real credit to the brand.

Whilst USB flash drives are excellent for carrying data around on, when you’re buying them to give away to important clients or to promote your company’s brand or products its critical that they look right.  After all part of the rationale for commissioning USB drives that are printed or engraved with your logo on is to build up a positive association with your brand and if the USB sticks you ultimately distribute look cheap and tacky

Sony USB

Sony USB

its going to reflect badly on you and will be money poorly spent.

These customers all had sufficient time in their project plans to ensure we were able to deliver exactly what they wanted including customised boxes and accessories in the case of Sony. Whilst it’s possible to produce printed USB flash drives in less than 48 hours, when you are in a rush, you inevitably end up having to compromise on the sticks you can use because subtle but key things like pantone matching of the body shells, custom boxes and custom lanyards all need at least 10 working days to manufacture (and deliver to you)

Of course there will always circumstances where you have little or no time to get some flash drives produced and if this is the case you find yourself in don’t despair because we do offer a “Rush Service” where we print from UK stock.

Zest USb Pens

Zest USB Pens

Typically your USB drive options will be limited to the more popular styles, colours and memory sizes but it’s always worth calling to see what we can offer. If you let us have your artwork we can turn around a mock up for you in a couple of hours and get the whole process rolling for you.

So, if you can build the production of USB flash drives into your plans, allow at least 10 working days to be on the safe side but if you are caught out don’t panic just call us and we’ll do everything we can to help!

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Some Cracking Examples of Branded USB Memory Sticks

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Unlock Your Sales Potential With USB Keys

Thursday, July 22nd, 2010

If you’ve got a new product or service you’re launching then one of the best ways to grab people’s attention and build awareness of it is to give them something for free. Ideally this “something” needs to be relevant, it needs to have a perceived high value and it needs to be useful and engaging enough for the recipient to want it and to want to use it on an on-gong basis.

USB Keys

USB Keys

Make sure you brand is clearly visible on whatever you giveaway and make sure its appropriate for your target customer base. There are plenty of promotional products to consider these days including caps, mugs, key fobs, pens, umbrellas and T-shirts. One of the more recent entrants to the promotional market is the USB flash memory stick. USB flash drives not only look fantastic when branded up with a company logo but they have the added benefit of being able to be pre-loaded with sales and marketing material, dynamic links to web sites, media files, presentation files and so on.

engraved USB Keys

engraved USB keys

Of course USB flash drives are a little more expensive than some of the other available options and they won’t be the right choice for every product but, in terms of perceived value and potential re-use they are an excellent choice. Continued re-use of the item which in turn generates brand awareness, brand loyalty and which then hopefully creates a brand advocate is exactly what you want.

Combine this effect with the benefits of distributing large amounts of sales and marketing material without the usual print and transportation costs and you begin to understand why USB flash drives are so popular.

It is not just new products that can benefit from the positive effects of distributing USB flash drives. Sending USB flash drives to your existing customers pre-loaded with the latest news about your company and an update on your products has been proven to deliver a lift in sales. Likewise equipping your sales force with branded flash drives to hand out as they met their customers is a nice touch and a great way to enable them to “thank” their customers for their previous support.

When choosing a USB flash drive for your campaign its easy to get overwhelmed by the range of models available. Safe chooses include the small, capless, twister model or the credit card USB that is ideal for complex and large prints. Alternatively you might consider something a little more unusual like the USB keys. These keys are small, robust, and as you’d expect fit neatly on a keyring and look fantastic engraved or printed.

If you are looking give a “shot in the arm” to your sales or to help with a product launch then Flash Drive Keys might just be the answer.

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Unlock Your Sales Potential With USB Keys

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Leather Branded Flash Drives Add A Touch Of Class

Monday, June 14th, 2010

Branded flash drives are incredibly popular as promotional giveaways, at trade shows and as handouts to delegates’ seminars and conferences. The growth in their popularity has been driven by falling costs, clearly defined user benefits and their ability to offset the high cost of print and transportation of brochures, slides etc.

Leather Flash Drives

Leather Flash Drives

Coupled with this you can’t escape the fact that people just like being given them. Flash drives are after all very popular for storing and carrying the growing amounts of digital files that are now a part of every day life. Whether its photo’s, music files, video files, games, work or homework files everyone can find a use to put a flash memory stick to!

But what do you do it you’re target audience is high net worth individuals or senior executives from companies attending a seminar or maybe you’re launching a product that has a high-ticket price. Most flash drives are manufactured from plastic or a combination of plastic and metal and when they’re printed up they do look excellent but if you really want to go the extra mile then its worth considering leather USB flash drives.

Leather flash drives are available in a range of different styles albeit there are not as many options to choose from as the “standard” plastic/metal ranges but, the leather ones all look incredibly classy. Leather flash drives are embossed or engraved rather than printed. Where the logo is engraved into the leather it’s there for good irrespective of how much wear and tear the flash drive takes. A logo printed onto a standard flash drive can wear off after a while, particularly if the flash

Leather USB

Leather USB Sticks

drive is attached to a key ring, but leather versions just age gracefully!

From a cost perspective leather USB flash drives are just pennies more than their plastic or metal counterparts but this extra cost (albeit small) is more than repaid in terms of “wow” factor and the sheer quality of the finished product.

Its always difficult to convey the real benefit of leather flash drives versus plastic or metal off the page and whilst the photos go someway towards illustrating how good they are you really need to see them in the flesh to see the real difference. If you’ve not seen a leather memory stick then ask your supplier to send you one. Most good suppliers will carry samples of leather versions and will happily send them out for evaluation free of charge.

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Leather Branded Flash Drives Add A Touch Of Class

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