We are looking forward to Mike’s upcoming presentation: “Building Traffic with Social Media” at UNCW on March 1st!  This informative seminar will help business owners take their existing social media campaigns to the next level with helpful tips and strategies on building quality traffic.  Many thanks to our friends at the SBTDC (Small Business & Technology Development Center) for hosting this event. We hope you’ll join us!

Register for Sage Island’s Social Media Strategy Seminar by Feb. 23rd!

Today is the last day you can register to attend the 2nd annual Biz Tech Expo! As the area’s largest Business to Business conference, this year’s event will include a variety of educational topics and seminars, a presentation luncheon with two impressive keynote speakers, and the ability to network with tons of successful local businesses. The conference will be held at the Wilmington Convention Center this Thursday, January 26th from 12-7 pm.

Sage Island has been given a special discount code just for our Facebook fans and customers, so if you are in the area and want to attend,  register with the code: sagebiztech. This waives the $5 entry fee to attend both the Expo and the after hours event. We hope to see you there!

We are looking forward tothis year’s Biz Tech Conference/Expo on January 26th at the Wilmington Convention Center!

The event is the region’s largest business-to-business conference and this year’s agenda is packed with seminars, excellent keynote speakers (PPD founder Fred Eshelman & former NC Governor Jim Hunt), and will include a ton of local exhibitors.  If you are in the area, we invite you to register with our special BizTech discount code. This waives your $5 entry fee to attend the BizTech Expo and AfterHours- both great networking events.

Visit the Biz Tech website and use the code: sagebiztech (This code will only work until Monday, January 23^rd so register soon.)

Sage Island will be in booth #203. Stop by and see us!

We hope everyone is settling back in from a busy holiday season and tackling January 2012 with all you got!

The first few weeks of the new year have been busy ones for us. We’ve already hit up Surf Expo, an action sports tradeshow in Orlando that is near in dear to our heart–  they are both a client of ours and the hub of all things action sports for a lot of our customers! We have kicked off many new projects on a local level that we are can’t wait to share with you. A few ecommerce projects are underway, a favorite local hangout is getting a website facelift, and we have been fortunate enough to receive several real estate and developer clients this month- an excellent indicator for our local economy. Stay tuned for more details!

We feel so fortunate to be starting off the year with such a bang, and are anxious to see what the year will bring. Our resolution is to continue to stay ahead of the trend in terms of cutting edge marketing and design technologies, and bring you the best products and service possible. Here’s to a great 2012!

We are having so much fun playing with these Mungi Bands – we can only imagine how much kids are going to love them! This summer a client came to us with a simple, but brilliant idea- he wanted to create a toy/bracelet, similar to the popular synthetic bands, but with a big defining factor- a magnet.  The idea is for kids to collect and trade the different styles and colored bands to make their own design. Our client tested this new product concept first with his own children, and after getting rave reviews, he knew he was on to something! A few weeks later, he contacted Sage Island to help get this product off the ground, in which we took him through a series of phases to further develop branding, identity, design and packaging.

First our graphic artists were tasked with the logo creation. Our design team had a blast creating the Mungi Bands brand. The goal was to create a simple, fun logo that appealed to the children’s toy market and incorporated the magnetic theme. We explored multiple styles, shapes, and colors before we all decided on the chosen logo: A unique style of lettering that plays up the “U” in Mungi, and includes the magnets as eyes to create a smiley, kid friendly mark.

After working out the logo and the “Collect and Connect” trademarked tagline, we then moved into package design and development. Our team skillfully plotted the best way to package these fun bands. From deciding on quantity per package, shape, store placement angles, and finally the package design-we are thrilled with the end result.

We had a great time working on this project. It’s fun to take someone’s bright eyed idea and turn it into a reality. Now, Mungi Bands have over 22 unique designs and colors encouraging kids to collect, trade, share and play with the different styles! They are debuting their product this Saturday at both Wilmington Learning Express locations (10am-12 at the Hanover Center Location and 1-3pm at the Military Cutoff Location).  We encourage you to stop by to pick up these perfect Christmas stocking stuffers, and get in early on this trend!

We have partnered with the Food Bank of Central & Eastern North Carolina this holiday season to raise awareness and donations for those at risk of hunger in our area. This organization has been providing food for people  in 34 counties in central and eastern North Carolina for over 30 years.

We are counting on the power of social media to help us do it!  Help spread the word by sharing this blog post, our Facebook Event, or Tweeting about it with the hashtag #SageIslandFoodBank. We have a drop box in our office and welcome financial donations as well in the form of checks made out to: Food Bank of Central & Eastern North Carolina.  For every five items you bring or $5 you donate, you are entered into our raffle for the chance to win a sweet prize. We will be posting updates and more information on the Sage Island Facebook Page.

We are getting excited about the Student Rocket Pitch event coming up next week, Wednesday, November 16th! Mike was asked to be one of the judges this year and will certainly have a tough decision on his hands with all of the brilliant business plans.  If you haven’t been to this event yet, put on by the UNCW Entrepreneurship Center, we highly recommend you attend. It’s a fun night where students pitch their entrepreneurial ideas in short 5 minute increments, competing for cash prizes. The audience has a hand in the vote via text messaging, so come help Mike decide who should win! Seats are limited so make sure you register for the Student Rocket Pitch soon.  See you there!