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Posts Tagged ‘Promotional USB Memory sticks’

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Chinese National Holiday – Order Now or Face Delays

Wednesday, September 16th, 2009

The Chinese National Holiday (1st – 8th October) is nearly upon us. Over this period we can not manufacture or ship Branded USB Memory Sticks from our factories in the Far East. The main USB Flash manufactures have already stopped production and as a result there has been a dramatic increase in prices.

Important notice

Historically, there are customs delays when the holiday is over, which extends the deliver timeframe.

So if you require any USB Branded Memory sticks for early Oct, then please ensure you place your order by the 23rd Sept latest.

We do hold some limited UK stock which we can print within 48hrs.

Please phone 01604 685040 or email trade@usb2u.co.uk to discuss your requirements.

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Promotional USB Sticks Have Evolved.

Friday, August 21st, 2009

The standard USB stick has been around for years and it is fair to say there is a common look and feel to these products but there are some new formats of USB stick available. These are a massive step on from the traditional format and will make a huge difference to the way the product looks and feels. If you want to stand out in a customers mind, providing a unique twist on the promotional USB sticks format, with your name or logo emblazoned across it will go a long way to doing so. If you have any awareness about marketing, you will know that innovation and individualism can go a very long way to helping you stand out from your peers. It may not sound like much but having the smallest edge over your competitors can be enough to make a massive difference with regards to sales and promotional work.

It may be that the promotional USB sticks are required to contain information and content about the company but this is no problem at all as content is able to be pre-loaded onto the cards. This can greatly help a firm spread the word about their products and will make it easier for potential customers to have all the relevant details to hand. Using this form of promotion should enable companies to allow their customers to be more informed about what they can do, which will hopefully translate into a greater number of sales in the long term. Anything which can promote a long-term business relationship in this day and age has to be worth considering for a company.

The only thing limiting the style of USB sticks these days are budget and imagination. This is due to the vast array of new styles, designs and concepts that are being used for USB sticks and this inevitably filters into the promotional USB sticks market. The quirkiness of these new styles and designs lends them perfectly to the promotional world and should really help firms and businesses spread the word about them. It used to be that colours would be the most eye catching element of a product but with leather and wood being just two of the fabric choices available for the modern range of USB sticks, the sky is the limit. This has extended to different designs like credit card shapes holding the USB stick or wristbands all of which will help the owner stand out from the crowd.

promotional USB sticks have rapidly changed over the past year or two and if you previously considered them but thought against the decision, perhaps it is time to reconsider. No matter what you are trying to promote, having your name, logo or mission statement incorporated onto promotional USB sticks will act as a great marketing tool for you and your needs. Ensuring you reach as many people as possible is hugely important and this simple yet hugely effective marketing tool enable any company or business to get ahead in a difficult market.

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Promotional USB Sticks Have Evolved.

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Promotional USB Stick Can Make You The Company Of Choice

Thursday, August 13th, 2009

With so many companies doing their best to grab the attention of potential customers, it has never been more difficult for a firm to get their promotional message across but there are always new and quirky ways to do so. Some firms who have large budgets may employ a marketing company to provide them with a concept for improving their image but that is not the sort of option that is open to everyone. It is possible to find ways that you can promote your company and ensure your name is on every desk that you want but you may have to be a little bit creative. Think about the sort of product that you use a lot in the office and try to imagine what would be of benefit to you.

Many businesses are now using usb sticks to store and pass their information and data between their staff members so you can imagine that a promotional usb stick would be of benefit to a great number of firms. Many of the promotional products that are sent to firms look great but have no real purpose which means they are probably stored away in a desk or unseen cupboard. This is frustrating as it would defeat the purpose of sending out the promotional product in the first place but using a product that is in demand can see the benefits rise greatly. A firm who receives a promotional usb stick with a company’s logo or contact details branded upon it may think that the firm is in touch with their needs.

They will likely look upon them in a more favourable manner which could make all the difference when decisions are made regarding future sales and contracts. Considering the current economic climate, it is hugely important for all firms to do the very best they can to increase sales and revenue and the promotional usb stick is a very useful way of increasing brand awareness amongst potential customers. Another benefit of using a promotional usb stick can come when working with a firm who undertake a great deal of work with the supplying company. It may well be that a pre-branded usb stick would be the obvious choice of storage system to record the work and data that is relevant to the relationship between the two firms.

Being able to have all this information in the one place and conveniently stored somewhere with that firms logo on it should make it easier to be retrieved when it is needed. This should bring benefits to both parties and help to ensure that the working relationship goes very well without any hitches. With so many different promotional tools and activities available it can be very hard to find the one that is right for you and for the parties you are trying to impress but there is no doubt that the benefits that arise from using a promotional usb stick are very apparent and should see any firm being placed in a better light. At a time when gaining any competitive advantage is of the upmost importance, this may be the factor that places you ahead of any rival firms.

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Promotional USB Stick Can Make You The Company Of Choice

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Promotional USB Memory and Data Integrity

Wednesday, August 5th, 2009

While flash memory has revolutionized business communications, promotional USB memory, when used to share data and important or even confidential information, requires a bit of foresight before a company decides to distribute a whole series of flash drives to end users.

A few extra steps may be required to ensure files that are pre-loaded remain secure and, if extra space for storing files is provided, that the flash drive remains useful to the widest possible audience.

Let’s say, for instance, that your company wants to distribute a product catalogue or an annual report to a select group of retailers that your firm normally does business with. To reduce the cost of printing hard copies and distributing them by mail, you decide to generate a bulk order of promotional USB memory sticks for easy reference within your sales network.

How do you ensure that this competitive information doesn’t end up in the wrong hands? The first step is to distribute these memory sticks only to authorized representatives that will have likely filed non-disclosure agreements with your company in advance. This ensures a measure of control over who has the information and how it is utilized.

The second step to protecting proprietary information is to encrypt or restrict the use of the files themselves. A distributor can pre-load data files with read-only access or include password protection that requires a user to enter a password to open the file. Strong encryption technology can delete files completely after a finite number of unsuccessful attempts to open a file.

In this way, marketing agreements between retailers and manufacturers, policies and procedures, and confidential data are protected and the risk of unauthorized access by competitors is minimized. If files are accidentally deleted or a flash drive malfunctions, a control group could retrieve the memory stick before replacing it.

These measures apply most in institutions where information is most specific and ultimately valuable, like government, non-profit, and civic organizations, universities, large corporations, and private interest groups.

promotional USB memory sticks distributed to employees or managers of these entities are not just handy tools for sharing information, but are company-owned assets that are subject to accountability and proper use, especially among principals with some measure of authority and cultural or professional influence.

Another factor in relation to data integrity and promotional USB memory is the issue of compatibility. In some cases, older computers will have problems running pre-loaded movies or applications that are native to newer operating systems like Windows Vista and Windows 7.

In addition, security firewalls designed by IT groups to protect corporate networks may prevent auto run capabilities for audio and video files or certain file types that could be used to spread computer viruses.

A corporation or an LLC, then, has important challenges with regard to IT security and data integrity. When designing and ordering promotional USB memory sticks, these firms must develop acceptable use policies, limit access to computers with USB drives, and keep antivirus software programs up-to-date to protect their company’s interests and ensure successful transactions when sharing information.

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Promotional USB Memory and Data Integrity

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Why Young Enterprise Should Embrace Promotional USB Memory Sticks

Friday, July 24th, 2009

The Young Enterprise scheme offers a range of programmes, based on the principle of Learning by Doing, which brings volunteers from business into the classroom to work with teachers and students. Some of the programmes enable students to work together to run their own real company.

With more than 5,500 schools and colleges participating in these programmes, Young Enterprise currently reaches more than 350,000 young people a year from primary school right through to university.

However, one of the challenges students have is to select a business that is relatively easy to establish, where there is genuine demand, the sunk investment is low and it gives scope for the students to learn many aspects of running a business.

One solution is selling Branded USB Memory sticks. These could carry the name of the school, colleague or university. It is also possible to have personalised Customer USB Memory sticks. These are ideal for storing and transporting course work.

So why are Promotional USB Memory sticks an ideal solution:

  • Students understand and many have previously used USB Memory sticks.
  • The sunk cost to purchase Branded Memory sticks is now relatively low.
  • The minimum order quantity can be as little as 50 units.
  • There is a ready-made market within the students’ educational establishment as their fellow students and staff will need a USB Memory sticks.
  • The opportunity to make a reasonable return on investment.
  • There are numerous UK suppliers, so no need to deal direct with the Far East where most of the Branded USB Memory sticks are manufactured.
  • Students will be exposed to a wide range of business activities including negotiating with suppliers, specifying design requirements, all the financial aspects of purchasing the Promotional USB Memory drives, pricing, marketing, fulfilment and finally customer services.

All in all, selling Branded USB Memory sticks ticks many of the boxes demanded by the very worthwhile Young Enterprise Scheme.

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What’s The Most Popular Storage Capacity for Promotional USB Memory Sticks?

Wednesday, July 15th, 2009

Branded USB Memory sticks are becoming evermore popular for the transfer and storage of large amounts of data. This popularity is mainly due to their compact size, ease of use and the dramatic reduction in price over the past few years.

One of the key decisions to make when purchasing Branded USB Memory sticks in the storage capacity.

Before delving into which capacity to select a short technical overview as is useful to understand the measurement terminology used when defining memory capacity.

Electronic data is measured in ‘bytes’. Multiples of these are:

•      1 Kilobyte (KB) is equal to 1,024 bytes

•      1 Megabyte (MB) is equal to 1,024 Kilobytes (1,048,576 bytes)

•      1 Gigabyte (GB) is equal to 1,024 Megabytes (1,073,741,824 bytes)

Branded USB Memory sticks range from 32MB to 16GB. They double up in size from 32MB:

•      32MB (almost obsolete)
•      64MB
•      128MB
•      256MB
•      512MB
•      1GB
•      2GB
•      4GB
•      8GB
•      16GB

You need to be aware that all Promotional USB Memory sticks need a small amount of capacity to allow it them work. As a general rule of thumb around 5% of the storage capacity will be used by the Memory Stick to manage how it stores the data on the stick.

So, how much data can each stick hold? The amount of data that can be stored depends on the type of the data, such as MP3 audio files, digital photos, word files etc. and the quality for example the resolution of photos.  As a benchmark 512MB memory stick would typically store about 250 photos.

When deciding what capacity to select for your Branded USB Memory sticks you need to consider the following.

• What is the objective of your Promotional USB Memory stick campaign. If it is to provide specific data or information that is pre-loaded, then the size should match the amount of data to be loaded. If the requirement is to allow the user to use the Memory stick as a promotional keepsake, then there needs to be sufficient headroom over and above any data that you may wish to load.

• What budget do you have? The higher the capacity the higher the price. However, the price differential between a 64MB and 1GB is no longer that great.

• The market for flash memory is volatile and is driven by supply and demand. Therefore, it is worth checking if there are any special offers on different USB Memory capacity. For example it has been know for 512MB to be cheaper than 256MB.

• If the Branded USB Memory sticks are gifts for prospects or existing key clients, you need to consider the perceived value of the item you are giving. So if budget is limited it may be prudent to buy less of higher capacity Branded USB Memory sticks.

Based on the above criteria, currently the most popular capacity for Branded USB Memory sticks is 1GB, but watch this space!

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Top Ten Pitfalls Of Buying Promotional USB Memory Sticks

Wednesday, July 15th, 2009

Buying Branded USB Memory sticks should be a painless process and for the most part it is. However, there are numerous examples of where things have gone wrong – some real horror stories! However, the good news is that by asking the right questions and selecting the right supplier you can avoid most of these issues.

This guide illustrates the top ten pitfalls of buying Promotional USB Memory Sticks and how to avoid them.

Find a reputable supplier

There are many suppliers providing Branded USB Memory Sticks As with any industry the quality of the organisations varies widely. Whilst normal due diligence is always required, here are a few tips to help you with the process:

• It is always good practice to run a credit check to make sure your supplier is in good financial health. This is more important if you are being asked to pay upfront for the Branded USB Memory sticks.

• Reputation speaks volumes. Don’t be afraid to ask for references and testimonials from their existing customer base and make contact. If they have provided excellent service levels, they will not be embarrassed to share their successes.

• Make sure there are full contact details on the web site including address and contact telephone numbers – and phone them!

• Ensure they are working from a business premises. There is a growing trend for individuals pertaining to be companies are working from home without the infrastructure to support you if things go wrong. An easy way to check this is by using Google Earth.

Hidden costs

When stating your requirements to a supplier be specific about your needs and ensure that they are all met by studying your quotation carefully. Ask for terms and conditions and be aware of payment terms and delivery date promises. For example some companies will charge extra for print and origination, so ensure that these are covered in the quotation.

Quality of Chipset / Housing

If you quote sounds to good to be true – then it probably is! The core cost of any Branded USB Memory Stick is made up of the USB Housing and USB Flash Chip components. There are ways of saving costs on these buy using poor quality housing and reconditioned USB Memory chips.   Both carry reputation risk for you or your client if things go wrong. So ensure you ask for a sample to check the housing quality and your supplier provides new branded A Grade chipsets such as Samsung, Hynix, Micron or Intel.

It is also worth asking what the manufacturer’s Quality Assurance testing procedure is.

Dataloads

To autorun or not to autorun that is the question! Many clients are faced with the dilemma of whether they should add an autorun facility to their promotional USB Promotional Memory Sticks.

An autorun facility allows users to insert a USB Branded Memory Stick and for the computer to automatically run a programme e.g. a movie file.

The advantages of this facility is that it ensures the user is presented with the information the client wants them to see, without having to find the information themselves. This makes is a very intuitive process and ensures the information on the USB Memory Stick is delivered. However there are some hidden pitfalls:

• Nuisance factor. If one of the objectives is to ensure that the USB Promotional Memory Stick is a keepsake that the end user will access on a regular basis then its worth bearing in mind that every time the user wants to access or save a document they will have to run through the dataload programme. Fine for the first few times, but thereafter they may find this an irritation and relegate the memory stick deep into a draw!

• Autoruns will not work on Win 98 or 2000 operating systems – beware there are still many users out there with these systems. You will also need to ensure that the appropriate code is written into any autorun for it to work on Mac operating systems.

• Some corporate firewalls restrict autoruns, so the danger is that the end user will never see the data.

There is a middle way, why not consider loading the data onto the USB Branded Memory Stick with an icon labelled ‘Click Here To Start’ and allow the user to access the data when they want.  This data can be protected so it would not be deleted, but overcomes may of the issues detailed above.

Proofs/screenshots

Many suppliers will mock up a visual of what the Promotional USB Memory Stick will look like before production. This does not always match the finished product. So ensure that the proof carries the colour pantone references and size of the logo. Some suppliers will provide a picture of a printed pre-production so you know exactly what you are going to get.

Shipping / Customs

Almost all Branded USB Memory sticks are manufactured in the Far East and as such need to pass through both Chinese / Taiwanese and UK Customs. For the vast majority of orders this is pretty seamless process. However, any consignment can be pulled for inspection and customs may request additional information. If a global brand is printed on the Promotional USB Memory sticks they may ask for written authentication from the end clients that the goods are not counterfeit.  Either way a custom check will delay your order from a few days to up to 3 weeks!

Returning goods / Warranties

Things go wrong! The mark of a good supplier is how they manage these issues. All Customised USB Memory Sticks should carry at least a 12 month warranty. Ensure your supplier stipulates this as part of their Terms and Conditions.  However, if the items need replacing it make take several weeks for the Branded USBs to be returned to the manufacturer and repaired or replaced.

Poor Packaging

Poor quality packaging can ruin a great looking USB Memory Stick. In particular the insert that holds the USB memory stick within a box needs to be of the same shape and size of the USB Branded Memory drive. Again the only solution is to have a sample of a box before you order.

Delivery Timeframe

Do not leave the ordering of Branded USB Memory sticks to the last minute unless you want to pay a premium for rush fees and limit your choice of what is available in the UK. Allow at least 2, ideally 3 weeks, from providing your supplier with the artwork, which kicks off the production process.

Quality Of Print

The printing of logos onto your Branded Memory stick is a real art form that at best makes a perfect reproduction of your logo at worst makes it look like real mess and something you would not want to associate your brand to. The typical printing process is spot or screen-printing. This is great for simple logos with up to 4 colours. However it cannot print tints, tones, complex logos or a logo with many colours. A new full colour printing process is now evolving allowing greater printing capabilities. Again if time permits ask for a pre-production printed sample and remove this potential pitfall.

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Drawing in the Crowds

Monday, July 13th, 2009

Many companies and businesses today are finding more and more that attending trade/marketing shows is one of the best ways to attract new business, especially in these hard times of the recession. Many potential clients can be approached face to face, and leaflets and freebies can be handed out, which help people to remember different companies and their services.

There are many types of giveaways that companies can offer to prospective clientele. Free pens with the company logo or slogan written on them are a big hit, as everybody needs a pen from time to time. Other companies opt for things such as stress balls, chocolates, balloons and even alcohol, occasionally, to draw in customers. All of these usually have the company logo and details featured prominently on the packaging and are ordered in mass quantities.

However, it seems that one of the latest trends in advertising your business is to use promotional USB memory drives, or pen drives. These are memory sticks which come in a variety of sizes, from as small as 64mb to a larger 4 GB, or sometimes even more. They can be used to store vital company information on them, such as price plans, contact information, available packages on offer and even videos and images showing the company to its best advantage. Also, they can be locked after they have been created, meaning that once the information is on the promotional USB memory drive, it cannot be deleted.  In addition to all these benefits, the exterior casing of the USB pen drives can be customised to show the company logo and/or slogan on the front. A lot of them also come in plastic cases that prevent them from being damaged and make them easier to stack and display on a marketing stand.

A lot of companies that are using promotional USB memory sticks to advertise their business seem to be finding that they have a bigger impact than using items such as chocolates or balloons. This may be because they are easy to slip in a handbag or wallet, so people will find them after they have left the show and access them to jog their memory of the company. Also, as it is so easy these days to use a laptop whilst travelling, people can access the promotional USB memory sticks even when they are going home on the train or the tube, for example.

The range of promotional USB memory drives that are available is ever growing. From the classic brushed aluminium style to leather, from wooden ones to novelty varieties such as wristbands or spheres, there is a type out there to suit every need. They can also be bought in an array of colours including yellow, green, red, blue and pink. Eco friendly memory sticks are also available, which are classed as environmentally friendly.

So, if you have booked yourself in for a trade show and need to find some way of advertising your business that is not only cost effective, but doesn’t hurt the environment, USB sticks may be the way forward. With such a wide range to choose from and incredible versatility when it comes to choosing the actual design that will best suit your company, promotional USB memory drives cannot be beaten.

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Drawing in the Crowds

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Branded USB Memory Stick – Watermarking Feature

Friday, July 10th, 2009

Irrespective of the quality of the printing process on a USB Branded Memory Stick, overtime it will succumb to wear and tear. So how can you ensure that the brand is always upmost in the user’s mind?

Well USB2U has launched a fantastic new service called Watermarking!!

The Watermarking works by having a logo or artwork of your choice programmed onto the Promotional USB Memory Sticks. This then appears as the background wallpaper in the drive window when your client plugs the Branded Memory Stick into a usb port.

This is a great way to reinforce your brand, add a promotion, provide contact details.

USB2U Watermarking

It is very simple to set on your Customised USB Stick and is guaranteed to impress! You could have your artwork or logo tiled or stretched to fit the drive window or as subtle as a single logo.

Think about how the wallpaper feature works on the desktop of your laptop or PC, this works in exactly the same way!

Below are comments from customers who have chosen the Wall Paper Feature:

“an absolutely brilliant feature – thanks for arranging it”

“we didn’t even know this was possible until our USB2U Account Manager discussed the idea with us, but we’d have it for all our future orders”

“a fantastic add-on to an already excellent promotional item”

Contact trade@usb2u.co.uk or 01604 685040.

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Can you delete files from pre-loaded Promotional USB Memory sticks?

Wednesday, July 8th, 2009

Picture the scenario. You have just taken receipt of your bright new USB Branded Memory sticks for an event that is due to commence in 2 days. You load the first of the USB Memory Sticks into your PC and to your horror you discover that the data has been loaded incorrectly or there is an error with the original information provided.  Apart from putting a wet towel over you head what options do you have? He’s a list of things that may help:

USB Dataload

  1. Try to minimise the risk of this happening in the first place. Ensure your Custom USB supplier provides you with screen grabs of the data for sign off. Ideally ask for a pre-production sample of your Branded USB Memory sticks with the data preload. This way there little risk of any issues in the future.
  2. If the data is not protected or has an autorun. Then there are some easy solutions:

    • Delete the data from the memory sticks and re-load. Doing these individually is a painful and slow process and is not recommended for batches of over 100 units, unless you have an army of people to throw at this. This process is also prone to quality issues.

    • There are several data duplication companies in the UK that can take the Branded Memory sticks and format and reload the data relatively easily and quickly.  They can process up to 3000 memory sticks within a few hours. Job done.
  3. The nightmare scenario! If the memory sticks are data-protected or have an autorun it becomes far more complex. No surprise, as by the very nature the Promotional USB Memory Sticks are engineered to stop end users doing exactly what you want to do, namely delete and change the data. The software required to do this will be dependant on the controller that the Branded Memory Stick has been loaded with. The controller is the mini operating system that all USB Memory sticks have. Again there are several options to resolve this.

    • Return back to the manufacturer. They have the technology to format and reload the data, but the downside is that it will take time to return to the Far East, get them reloaded and shipped back. You would need to allow up to 2 weeks for this.

    • Some USB Providers will have the software to allow the data to be deleted in the UK. If not, ask them to try to obtain from the manufacturer. This would allow them to delete the data. Then the next challenge would be reloading the data. The easiest thing to do would be to load the new data with no protection or an autorun. However, if this is a pre-requisite then there are a few UK Data Duplication companies that have the capabilities of loading the data with copy protection and autorun. Again this will be dependant on the controller that is on the Branded USB Memory Drive.

The moral of this story is to ensure that you minimise the risk of this happening, by having a pre-production sample produced. Otherwise you will be entering a very stressful process and that towel will continue to get wetter!

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