How Red’s All Natural Built an Influencer Program from Scratch — and Why Authenticity Was Already Baked In
Eric Savage is the sole social media and digital marketing manager at Red’s All Natural, a frozen burrito brand that went over a decade without spending a dollar on marketing. In 2026, Eric is changing that — leading the brand’s first-ever creator and influencer program. We sat down with him to talk about building an influencer strategy on a lean budget, measuring brand awareness, writing briefs that actually work, and why treating creators like real people is the smartest marketing move a brand can make.
Q: Red’s went over a decade without any marketing investment. How did that shape your approach today?
Eric Savage, Red’s All Natural:
Our founder Mike’s philosophy was simple: “Nothing kills a product faster than great marketing.” His concern was over-promising — hyping something you can’t deliver. So instead of investing in campaigns, he focused entirely on making the best-tasting burrito possible and letting word of mouth do the work.
What’s interesting is that, as a marketer, I look at that as a gift. I joined Red’s after eating their burritos myself for over ten years. Before I even applied, I was already a true believer. And now that I’m here, I have panel data confirming Red’s scores higher on taste than any other frozen burrito on the market. That gives me a confidence that most marketers don’t have: I know the product is going to speak for itself.
That’s why influencer marketing is such a natural fit for us. I can put our burritos in the hands of creators from all walks of life and just let them react on camera. I don’t have to script them or concoct some elaborate messaging strategy. The authenticity in their faces says everything. Word-of-mouth marketing, in 2026, is influencer marketing.
“Nothing kills a product faster than great marketing.” That challenge actually gave us the ammunition to build something better.
Q: You’re essentially a one-person marketing team. How do you manage everything, and where does AI fit in?
A: No two days look the same. I’m responsible for social media, creative, and all things digital — with a small supporting cast including our graphic designer and customer service lead who runs our loyalty program, Club Rojo. But the social and creator side sits with me.
AI has become a genuine partner in getting through the workload. I use Claude heavily for data analysis — there’s so much information coming in from social platforms, SPINS data, sales reports across retailers. AI helps me surface the key insights quickly so I can bring them to leadership and actually act on them, instead of spending all day cutting data every which way.
On the creative side, it’s also a lifesaver. There are mornings — I’m a dad and a husband outside of this job — where I’m groggy and staring at a blank screen trying to think of a caption or build a campaign brief. AI gets me 95% of the way there. Then I come in and make sure it actually sounds like Red’s.
I’d also give a lot of credit to the PartnerUp platform for removing huge amounts of the manual work that used to come with influencer marketing — the scrolling, the vetting, the engagement-rate calculations. Having that all in one dashboard means I can make creator decisions faster and spend more time on the work that actually requires a human.
Q: How do you make the case internally for brand awareness as a KPI and making influencer marketing a part of meeting that KPI?
A: Honestly, the case made itself. We commissioned a formal aided brand awareness study — measured ourselves against key competitors — and the numbers were sobering. We knew we had the best-tasting product in the category. But if people don’t know we exist, none of that matters. The top of the funnel was just too small.
From there, we set up ongoing monthly tracking with a third-party vendor to watch that number move. We also run brand lift studies directly inside Meta and TikTok — which lets us A/B test creative against real audiences and see what’s actually shifting awareness.
But one of the most practical signals I track is social mentions. Before we started this creator program, we were getting maybe 10 to 15 organic mentions per month. Now we’re in the several hundreds. That’s a meaningful change.
There’s also a feature inside Instagram that I rely on a lot: when you look at insights on a collaborative post, you can see what percentage of viewers were non-followers. When we post from our own account — even with 40,000-plus followers — we’re mostly talking to people who already know us. But when a creator posts and I look at those same insights, it’s 99.9% non-followers. That’s the whole point of influencer marketing, and seeing it in real numbers is incredibly motivating.
Before we started our creator program, we were getting 10 to 15 organic mentions per month. Now we’re in the several hundreds.
Q: Tell us about your “New Year, New You” campaign — the insight behind it and what surprised you.
A: The New Year thematic is powerful for any consumable brand. For us, it was a natural moment because Red’s actually delivers against the most universal New Year goal: more time. Whether someone wants to lose weight, read more books, hit a business goal, or be a better parent — what everyone really needs is time. And Red’s gives you that. Two minutes in the microwave. Clean ingredients. No guilt.
So we built the campaign around that insight. We partnered with creators from wildly different walks of life — a farming mom, a business leader, various lifestyle creators — and simply asked them to show their audience how Red’s fits into their life and their version of a fresh start. No manufactured enthusiasm required.
The biggest surprise was the volume of creator interest we received through PartnerUp. I genuinely had no idea what to expect. But the responses came in tenfold — to the point where I felt bad I couldn’t work with everyone. We ended up with 20 to 30 creators for that campaign. And the quality was there too. It wasn’t just quantity.
It changed how I think about scale. If you’re not using a platform to manage creator outreach, you’re spending weeks on DMs that may never even get seen. With a platform, you can genuinely find your dream creator — and then do it again, and again.
Q: How do you write a creator brief that gets you what you actually want?
A: There’s a line I heard on a podcast that I think about constantly: people think in pictures, but they communicate in words. When I’m writing a brief, I have a crystal-clear image in my head of what I want the content to look like. But the moment I translate that into words, I’m introducing interpretation. The word “funny” means something different to you than it does to me. “Clean” does too.
So the first thing is: be specific. Use visual examples. Link to content that shows the vibe you’re going for, not just words that describe it.
But the second thing — and this is where I think a lot of brands go wrong — is over-directing. You can’t script someone’s genuine reaction. If you over-brief a creator, what you get is exactly what we all scroll past: someone reciting talking points with dead eyes.
At Red’s, we’re firm on our non-negotiables: antibiotic-free meats, handmade tortillas, our own sauces. Those things are part of who we are. But beyond that, we give creators real freedom to show up as themselves. That tension — clear boundaries, genuine freedom — is where the best content lives.
The magic happens when the creator actually loves the product and you trust them to say so in their own words.
People think in pictures, but they communicate in words. That’s where creative briefs break down.
Q: What does your influencer program look like today in terms of scale, and where is it headed?
A: We started 2026 with our first-ever meaningful creator program. It’s already proven out from an awareness standpoint — we know it works. Where it goes from here is about integration.
The program used to feel like a bonus — a nice-to-have. Now it’s becoming standard operating procedure. Every campaign planning session starts with: what’s the influencer element? Organic posts, paid ads, retailer media, programmatic — and now creator. It’s all one integrated approach.
Scale-wise, it’s flexible by design. We ran a spring campaign with eight or nine creators and a few thousand dollars — very surgical, timed to fill a gap when we pulled back on paid social. For New Year, New You, we went broader with 20 to 30 people. We have a major product launch coming up at a key retailer, and I already have budget allocated to PartnerUp for that. The ability to flex up or down based on the moment is something I genuinely value — there’s no minimum spend pressure, no credits to burn, no awkward contract conversations.
And one unexpected benefit: retail buyers respond to this. Being able to sit down with a Kroger or a Walmart and show them a highlight reel of creators actually driving shoppers to their shelves — that changes the conversation.
Q: What’s the one thing you do as a social media manager that most brands overlook?
A: Treat people like real people. It sounds obvious, but almost no brands actually do it.
When I joined Red’s, our Instagram was following 4,000 accounts. I spent the first six months unfollowing all of them — one by one — until I rebuilt our following list to the 200 or 300 accounts that actually reflect who we are. That took time, but it changed how I showed up every day.
Now the first hour of my workday is spent on social media — not posting, but engaging. Reading what our followers are sharing, responding to stories, leaving real comments on creators’ posts that have nothing to do with burritos. If a creator we work with posts a vacation photo, Red’s comments on it. Genuinely. Because these are people we actually have a relationship with.
There’s a stat somewhere that says 99% of conversations about brands online happen without the brand present. That blows my mind. I think about it constantly. If someone’s talking about your brand — or you — and they’re getting the story wrong or just not feeling seen, wouldn’t you want to be part of that conversation?
When we do this with mom creators especially, the responses we get back are genuinely moving. People who feel like no one told them they’re doing a good job. It’s not a marketing tactic — it’s just being a good human. And it creates the kind of loyalty that no ad spend can buy.
I think of our influencer program almost like a mass sampling initiative. Yes, we’re paying them to create content. But every single one of them is also a potential lifelong consumer. If we treat them like a transaction, that’s what we get. If we treat them like a person, we might convert them forever.
99% of conversations about brands online happen without the brand present. My job is to change that — one real comment at a time.
Q: What advice would you give to a marketer who is just getting started with influencer marketing?
A: Three things.
First: you can go fast alone, but you’ll go much further with the right platform. Don’t try to manage creator outreach, vetting, and campaign logistics manually. Find a platform that does the heavy lifting and gives you actual account support — someone who is genuinely invested in your success, not just the sale. That makes an enormous difference, especially when things inevitably go sideways.
Second: remember that your brand reputation is on the line every single time. Even if a platform is the intermediary, the creator is going to remember your brand — not the platform — if something goes wrong. That’s a real consumer. Treat every interaction accordingly.
Third, and most importantly: set clear, realistic expectations internally before you start. Influencer marketing is not a light switch. It’s planting a tree. You’re not going to wake up the next day and see it grown. The brands that abandon it too soon are the ones who never aligned internally on what success looks like at 30 days, 90 days, and six months. Build those crawl-walk-run benchmarks. Give your leadership team something to hold onto besides a sales number that was never going to move in one campaign anyway.
We went into 2026 with one goal: prove that people respond to Red’s when they see it through creators. We’ve proved that. Now we build from here.
Eric Savage is the Social Media & Digital Marketing Manager at Red’s All Natural. Red’s All Natural is available in major retailers nationwide, including Kroger, Publix, Target, Walmart, and Costco.
This interview was conducted by Andrea Galvez of PartnerUp.