Creative direction case study
How I Built Eat It Up Marketing Into a $500K Hospitality Agency and Sold It in Three Years
Client & Context
Brand: Eat It Up Marketing | Full-Service Hospitality Marketing Agency
Industry: Hospitality, Food & Beverage, Travel & Lifestyle
Size: 10+ creatives | Hybrid (San Antonio HQ)
Role: Founder & Creative Director
In 2022, I founded Eat It Up Marketing — a cheeky, full-service creative agency built to shake up the hospitality industry. The name said it all: we weren’t here to be another stuffy marketing firm. We were here to make people hungry for what our clients were serving.
Eat It Up specializes in content, PR, digital, and creative services for restaurants, hotels, packaged food brands, and tourism initiatives. The agency quickly became a go-to partner for high-profile hospitality brands, from Hilton, Canopy, Kimpton, and Plaza Hotels to award-winning local restaurants recognized in the Michelin Guide and Texas Monthly.
Challenge
When I launched Eat It Up, the hospitality world was in recovery mode. Restaurants and hotels were reopening after the pandemic and struggling to reconnect with audiences. Their messaging needed to do more than inform — it needed to rebuild trust, drive foot traffic, and reignite excitement.
The San Antonio food scene was expanding rapidly, but many venues lacked a cohesive marketing strategy. They were running disjointed campaigns, outsourcing to generic agencies that didn’t understand the nuances of the industry. Eat It Up’s challenge was to offer real-world hospitality expertise, delivering marketing that looked and felt like the industry it served — dynamic, sensory, and alive.
Approach / Method
I approached Eat It Up as a brand first, designing a full brand architecture from the ground up and structuring it to scale.
Strategic pillars:
Bold Positioning: A tongue-in-cheek brand name and irreverent tone instantly set us apart from corporate competitors.
Service Design: Developed tiered service packages that translated complex marketing concepts into language hospitality owners actually understood.
Audience Segmentation: Defined verticals for restaurants, hotels, packaged goods, and tourism — each with tailored creative approaches.
Visual Branding: Directed the logo, visual system, and brand photography to embody color, energy, and appetite appeal — no stock photos of handshakes here.
Operational Systems: Created internal content playbooks, social strategy templates, and campaign frameworks to maintain quality across 25+ clients.
Creative Culture: Built and mentored a multidisciplinary team of 10+ creatives — from account managers to photographers — fostering collaboration, autonomy, and professional growth.
My creative philosophy was simple: break boundaries, drive connection, and deliver results. Marketing should make you feel something — especially in an industry built on sensory experiences.
Solution & Implementation
As Creative Director, I balanced visionary leadership with day-to-day execution. I oversaw creative direction, approved campaign concepts, led client strategy calls, managed new business development, and maintained a pulse on every major project.
With systems in place, our team executed:
Weekly social campaigns featuring professional photography and trend-responsive storytelling.
Biweekly email marketing that doubled client ROI through strategic offers and brand storytelling.
Monthly photoshoots and quarterly creative campaigns for product launches and seasonal menus.
Comprehensive PR and influencer partnerships to generate buzz and press coverage.
Balancing business growth and creative leadership, I kept one foot in strategy and one in execution — building an agency that could scale without losing its soul.
Results
💼 $500K in revenue within three years, with profitability in Year One and systems in place to scale toward $1M annually.
🏨 25+ active clients across hospitality sectors — including hotels, bars, restaurants, and tourism initiatives.
🍴 Three restaurant openings led by Eat It Up campaigns, one earning a Michelin recognition.
📈 200% average social growth and up to 98% click-through rates on reservation campaigns.
📬 Email campaigns that doubled ROI, often paying for entire retainers with one send.
📰 Client coverage in Texas Monthly, the Michelin Guide, local press, and national media.
🔁 3+ year average client retention, with many staying from the agency’s founding.
💡 Acquisition in 2025: Sold through a profit-share agreement to an outside partner, ensuring continuity of culture and client success.
“Eat It Up became the creative engine behind San Antonio’s most talked-about restaurants and hotels — proof that bold ideas, beautiful storytelling, and data-driven strategy can transform local brands into household names.”
Key Takeaways
Lead like a creative, think like a strategist. Balancing artistry and analytics is what drives scalable success.
Culture fuels creativity. Investing in a talented, empowered team led to breakthrough campaigns and long-term client retention.
Disruption builds demand. A cheeky, fearless brand voice helped Eat It Up outpace legacy agencies in a competitive hospitality market.
Why it matters: Eat It Up proved that passion, precision, and creative direction can turn a small local agency into a half-million-dollar brand — built to scale, sold for profit, and designed to last.