USB sticks can provide you company with a great promotional tool. Hand them out to your loyal customers as a "thank you," use them to boost your brand visibility and ensure you make a statement and ensure you are the first name your clients see on their desk when they need to order a product or service that you provide.

Before you place any orders, there are some very important factors you need to take into consideration, ensuring that the custom USB sticks you buy are ones your customers will use, they will enjoy and that will help them remember your name moving forward.

The first thing to focus on is whether the custom USB sticks you are currently looking at are USB 1.1 or USB 2.0 or even USB 3.0. The newer versions are the 3.0 and it's advisable to ensure that these are the ones you provide to your clients, enabling them to enjoy superior functionality and ongoing use, rather than having a product on their desk that they cannot use and that will not give your company the professional image you are looking for.

From here focus on the memory size. Years ago a small 64mb USB stick would be more than enough, but today they can go up to 32GB, which offers plenty of storage and convenience. This enables your customers to store all their files and photographs with ease and take them with them wherever they go. Giving your clients a smaller drive is just going to waste your money and their time, focus on the larger memory size, ensuring that the device you give to your customers are ones they will use regularly, helping to promote your company to anyone who visits their desk throughout the day.

You will also want to look at your target market. Chances are you have a specific type of customer. If you are technology shop, then your clients will all have tech savvy, this means that you want to choose a drive that is going to promote your company in the best possible light while appealing to your target market. If your target market is teenagers, consider fun custom USB sticks that they will be proud to take to school and show off to their friends and family.

When looking at your target audience to help you with the custom USB sticks you are about to order, consider what they may use them for outside of office hours as well as in the office environment. At work they may use the stick to store documents and hand them to a colleague, but once at home, they may use them to store photographs and pictures. This is something to take into consideration, which can also help you identify the best size memory to choose, ensuring that your clients will make the most of their promotional gift and remember your company in the best possible light moving forward.

Price should factor into your decision, but not be your only deciding factor. Of course when buying custom USB sticks that you are going to hand out as gifts, you don't want to break the bank. A good rule of thumb is the more you buy, the cheaper the per item cost will be. Focus on quality, memory size and the type of USB over price, ensuring you buy from a reputable company that can provide you with a good warranty to put your mind at ease.

Finally, identify if the supplier of the custom USB sticks will offer you any free samples. This way you can get the products and then check them to identify which one you feel is the best match based on your marketing budget.