By this time, you're probably already aware of the recent trend among businesses of using branded USB drives as promotional items.
If you're still wondering why, then the simplest answer is because customers love them.
Businesses keep giving them away because it carries an impressive number of potential benefits not seen on conventional and more expensive marketing activities.
Why Flash Drives? For too long, companies were content with conventional promo items like pens and notebooks to drive interest and earn the good graces of existing and potential customers.
They dump them on their customers each time they get expecting great returns.
But it has become increasingly apparent that most of us are simply too used to these items for them to create a level of resonance that businesses have come to expect.
They often end up unused, forgotten, given to kids or worse, thrown away.
Now, more and more marketing professionals are advocating branded flash drives as effective tools to regain lost customer interest and improve brand recognition.
What Can I Get From Giving Them Away? Branded USB drives are highly appealing because of their inherent value and usability.
These are devices that in many ways help improve people's way of doing things, and for a business to get associated with such a beneficial device opens up a windfall of rewards.
If you decide to incorporate these little gadgets to your marketing plan, you should expect to see these benefits

• Greater awareness for your brand.
  Flash drives are must-haves in this age of constant information-sharing.
  Whoever receives a branded USB drive from you will most likely use it all the time at work and at home, which presents an opportunity to increase awareness about your brand.
  Think of them as little hand-held ads.
  
• Lower advertising expenses.
  If you have just a hundred of these branded flash drives given away, you're practically broadcasting them as ads to a hundred people plus the hundreds more who see your recipients using them.
  Seen from this perspective, using branded flash drives is a lot more economical than a one-time print ad or a series of television ads.
  
• Improved Company Image.
  With a branded USB drive, you're giving your customers something that is actually useful to them in a lot of ways.
  For each time they use it and see your company colors, tagline or marketing message, they're reminded that it was a gift from you which encourages a positive view of your business - virtually the complete opposite of the old maxim 'out of sight, out of mind.
  '
• Deal with Less Paper.
  You probably devote too much of your marketing dollars in printing brochures, catalogs, flyers and other paper-based marketing materials.
  And let's face it, most of these just get thrown away and forgotten forever, making them an inefficient and environmentally unsound manner of spreading word about your business.
  With branded USB drives you have a chance to go paperless in your marketing materials by loading each one of these flash drives with digital versions of your catalogs and brochures.
  You save yourself money on printing costs while also saving trees along the way.
  

Now more than ever, it's important for every cent to count, especially in business where the need to maximize value has to strike a balance with achieving the loyalty of increasingly selective consumers.
It's important to spot trends and see value in areas before most everyone else to get ahead, and branded flash drives present a strong case of benefits that can help you get there.