Will You Be Sending Out USB Sticks For Christmas
If you’re planning to send out a gift to your customers this Christmas then if you’ve not already got your gifts on order then you need to get your skates on because time is ticking away.
Popular gifts tend to include perennial favourites like diaries, calendars, food hampers and bottles of wine and whilst these are always well received at a time when the economy is struggling it’s getting harder to justify gifts that don’t do more than just get consumed.
Historically diaries and calendars would be relatively easy to justify because by their very nature they are used all year long and the recipient is reminded every time they use them of who gave them the calendar or diary. But, with the continued explosion of smart phones, tablets and PC’s how many people actually use paper based diaries or calendars these days?
An interesting alternative to the more traditional gifts is the USB memory stick – these can be printed with your logo (including a Christmas theme or message), they can be supplied in an attractive gift box and more importantly they can be pre-loaded with data before they are sent out.
The data (files) that can be pre-loaded could include a greeting or Christmas message from you and your colleagues (comprising of an “electronic Christmas card”, a short movie, a recorded message etc.) as well as this you could include information on your products/services. By doing this your Christmas USB sticks become “trojan horse like” – not only do you give your customers a timely gift and “thank you” but you also use the opportunity to remind them of the products and services you sell!
This subtle form of marketing is much easier to justify than requesting a budget to send your customers a box of chocolates or a case of wine and the USB sticks will last significantly longer. Given USB sticks were voted as the most popular promotional gift in a recent BPMA survey there’s also no danger of disappointing the recipient.
The usual lead time for branded USB sticks is around 10 working days so there is still time to get them ordered in time for Christmas but don’t leave it too late because you’ll need to make the last posting date for Christmas delivery.
And, if you do plan to post the USB flash drives out you might want to consider getting Credit Card shaped USB flash drives because these give you a larger space to print your message on, they slip easily into the wallet of the recipient and more importantly because they are only 2mm thick they can be sent out using standard letter post.