When you buy branded USB memory sticks to hand out to prospective customers at a conference, press event, show or exhibition then to make sure you get the best from your investment you should, where possible, pre-load the flash drives with your company sales and marketing material.

You’ll hear this process referred to as Duplication, Replication, Pre-loading, Data-loading or just copying. Whatever you refer to it as you should make sure that all of the memory sticks you distribute have your sales flyers, product brochures, company web site links, promotional videos, installation guides, press releases etc. loaded on them.

Whilst a basic printed memory stick will do an excellent job of promoting your company’s name if you fail to load the stick with data you really will be missing a trick. Afterall, not only have you paid for the memory but this is your opportunity to put in front of your customer and prospects a fantastic array of information about your business, your products and the services your offer.

If you’re worried that any data you load will simply be “deleted” then you could “lock” the data on the flash drives but if you do this don’t load too much data on the stick and leave no room for the user. They are unlikely to use the flash drive if all its does is carry your “locked” data and then your brand won’t get the on-going use and exposure you have paid for. If you do decide to “lock” and protect any data on the memory stick bear in mind that this data will have to be ready early so that it can be loaded at the factory during manufacture. You can’t load and “lock” data post production.

The need to have the data ready early means that the vast majority of flash drives are pre-loaded with data that is not locked. This is no bad thing because if the content is compelling it will be viewed and data that is not locked can be loaded at anytime meaning you have right up until the last minute before your event to load the data.

Of course if you’re faced with the prospect of unpacking and loading data onto hundreds or possibly thousands of memory sticks it can be pretty daunting. Ideally it’s a job left to the professionals because instead of having to load each memory stick one at a time they will use professional USB data duplication kit. This will get the job done quickly and easily and they will normally give you a report on the performance of each stick loaded with your data – think of it as another QA test on the memory sticks before they are distributed.

There are many dedicated data duplication companies in the market with many of them extending from CD and DVD duplication into USB duplication. These are fine but it does introduce another company into the loop and potentially extend the overall timeframe. If you can try and use a supplier of branded memory sticks that is able to offer data duplication as well as supply the USB flash drives.

Phil is part of the team at USB2U. USB2U is a specialist supplier of Branded and Promotional USB Memory Sticks. We offer fast turnaround times, excellent advice and support and free design and mock-ups. If you are considering Branded Memory Sticks or want custom USB memory sticks then please contact us – we ‘d be delighted to hear from you.