Retention Marketing Lead (Fractional Freelance)

Lyons Leather Co.™; Lyons (CO); Remote; USD 50,000 - 73,000; Part time

Benefits offered by this job

Monthly retainer

Remote work

Flexible hours

Job summary

Lyons Leather Co.™ is seeking a part-time retention marketing lead to own email, SMS, and loyalty programs. You’ll build campaigns, flows, and rewards that turn first-time buyers into repeat customers, reporting to the Head of Growth & Marketing.

This freelance role starts fractional with potential to grow, 15–20 hours per week and remote work. You will design emails, write briefs, segment audiences, and QA campaigns in Klaviyo, ensuring on-brand experiences and strong lifetime value for

Qualifications

• Hands-on retention, lifecycle, or CRM marketing for a DTC brand.
• Experience with Klaviyo and SMS is a plus.
• Strong writing, design sensibility, and brand alignment.
• Able to work part-time, independently, and meet deadlines.

Responsibilities

• Plan email content aligned with marketing calendar.
• Write briefs and copy directions for campaigns.
• Segment audiences for relevant sends.
• Design on-brand emails and templates.
• Build and QA campaigns in Klaviyo.
• Audit and improve flows: welcome, cart, browse, post-purchase, replenishment, win-back, VIP.
• Protect deliverability and maintain domain health.
• Test subject lines, copy, timing, and offers.
• Develop and optimize rewards, referral, and loyalty programs.
• Provide weekly reporting on revenue, churn, cohorts.

Skills

Retention marketing

Email marketing

SMS marketing

Loyalty

Klaviyo

Tools

Notion

Klaviyo

Job description

Lyons Leather Co. is a small-batch leather goods brand built on versatility, craftsmanship, and the art of carrying less. We design convertible pouches and accessories that simplify what you carry and go everywhere you do.

Our story

It started in 2019 with a suitcase half packed and one last search for the perfect travel bag that didn't yet exist. For over a decade, I'd been swapping between bags that were cute but not comfy and backpacks that were useful but not always cute. My classic fanny pack wasn't easy to dress up when the occasion called for it, and bringing multiple bags when I traveled drove my inner minimalist crazy. So I stopped searching and started making.

Our creed and values

We don't do "good enough." Every product page, every email, every word and every number is a reflection of the brand, and we treat it that way.

We work in an organized way, not in chaos. Notion is our single source of truth: every task is logged there, and it's updated in real time as work moves.

We use AI as a tool, but human judgment always leads. Every document, line of copy, and piece of creative that leaves this company is carefully reviewed by a person.

We are a small team, so everyone's work is visible and everyone owns their piece. We measure success by results, not hours or activity.

• Quality comes first, always. We will miss a deadline before we ship something that isn't right. We never trade quality for speed or cost.
• Details are the work. A typo, a wrong price, or a broken link is not small. It's the difference between a premium brand and a cheap one.
• Own the outcome. You own your numbers from start to finish. No excuses, no blame, no "that's not my job."
• Results over activity. Busy is not the goal. Profit, growth, and customers who come back are the goal.
• Raise the bar. Every week the work should be sharper than the week before. Comfort with the status quo is a reason to move on.
• Tell the truth fast. Bad news early beats good news late. We want problems on the table the moment you see them.

The role: Retention Marketing Lead

The Retention Marketing Lead plans, designs, and builds the emails, rewards, and loyalty programs that turn first-time buyers into customers who come back. You own email content from idea to inbox, and you own the programs that make a Lyons Leather Co. customer worth more over time.You report to our Head of Growth & Marketing, who owns the marketing calendar and our retention targets.

The challenge you'll take on

Our year-over-year churn is too high. We are also moving away from renting attention through paid ads and toward an audience we own, and that only works if the customers we win keep coming back. Email, SMS, and loyalty are how we keep them.

You will build the retention engine: the campaign and flow content, the design and code behind it, and an upgraded rewards, referral, and loyalty program that raises repeat purchase rate and lifetime value.

Engagement: Fractional freelance to start, with the option to grow into a larger or longer-term role. Hours: 15–20 hours per week Location: Remote Type: Independent contractor

What you'll own

Email content planning

• The email content plan. Plan campaign content in step with the marketing calendar owned by the Head of Growth & Marketing. Every idea must be interesting or useful to the customer. If it isn't, no email goes out. We would rather send fewer, better emails than fill the calendar.
• Briefs and copy direction. Write clear briefs for every campaign and flow: the goal, the audience, the angle, and how we'll measure it. Write or direct the copy to our brand voice, and review every line.
• Segmentation. Segment by what customers bought, when, and how they engage, so every send is relevant to the people who get it.

Design and development

• Email design. Design on-brand emails and templates that look premium on every device and in dark mode, and that match our product photography and style.
• Build and QA in Klaviyo. Build campaigns and flows yourself, including templates, dynamic content, and conditional blocks. Every send is checked for links, pricing, segments, rendering, and copy before it goes out.
• Flow audit and improvement. We already have flows in place. Audit every one for revenue, timing, copy, and design, then improve what works, retire what doesn't, and build what's missing, from welcome, cart, browse, and post-purchase to replenishment, win-back, and VIP. Keep every flow current, tested, and documented.
• Deliverability and account health. Protect our sender reputation. Keep sender authentication (SPF, DKIM, and DMARC) and our sending domain in good standing, keep the list clean, and set and follow a policy for suppressing contacts who no longer engage. Monitor bounce, complaint, and unsubscribe rates and tools like Google Postmaster Tools, and keep emails light, tested, and easy to read in every inbox.
• Testing. Run subject line, content, timing, and offer tests, and keep a written log of what we learned.

Rewards, loyalty, and lifetime value

• Rewards and loyalty program. We already have a rewards, referral, and loyalty program. Audit it, then amplify and improve it: how customers earn and redeem, the tiers and perks, the economics, and how it shows up on the site, in email, and after purchase. Keep it right for a premium brand that does not discount all the time.
• Referral and VIP. Improve our existing referral program and build VIP experiences that make our best customers feel known.
• Lifetime value. Track cohorts, repeat purchase rate, time between orders, and lifetime value by segment. Find where customers drop off and fix it.
• Churn. Reduce year-over-year churn from about 66%. Set targets, report on them every week, and say what you're doing about any miss.

How you work

• Reporting. Send an accurate weekly report, organized by program and flow, before the Monday meeting so everyone arrives having read it. Cover revenue, repeat purchase rate, churn, list growth, deliverability, unsubscribe and complaint rates, and what you're doing about any miss.
• Documentation. Keep your plans, templates, and processes in Notion so the work runs the same way every time, even when you're out.

Who you are

You are a retention marketer first. You have worked hands-on in email, SMS, or loyalty for a DTC brand (as an employee, a freelancer, or on your own projects) and can show what you did and what it earned.

You plan, design, and build. You come up with the idea, write the brief, design the email, and build it in Klaviyo. You don't need a separate designer and developer for everyday sends, and you can brief ours when a project is bigger.

You understand rewards, loyalty, and lifetime value. You know how points, tiers, perks, referral, and VIP programs work, what they cost, and when they pay for themselves. You can design a program for a premium brand that does not discount all the time, and explain why it works.

You are extremely detail-oriented. This is an important requirement for this role. You proofread everything twice. You notice the wrong price, the broken link, the off-brand photo, and the number that doesn't add up, and you fix it before anyone else sees it. Your work rarely needs a second review.

You are organized. You love using a platform like Notion to document plans, templates, and SOPs, and to keep your task lists written down and current. You do not operate in chaos.

You are self-sufficient and creative. You don't wait for the founder to hand you content, ideas, or creative. You bring fresh ideas that make our emails and rewards stand out.

You live the brand. You understand our brand deeply and protect it in every decision. You ask why before anything goes out, and you hold every piece of work to the brand's standard.

You also have:

• 1–4 years in retention, lifecycle, or CRM marketing, ideally at a DTC brand on Shopify or Shopify Plus, or a portfolio that shows you are beyond your years.
• Expert, hands-on Klaviyo skills: auditing and improving existing flows, segments, templates, dynamic content, and reporting. Experience with SMS is a plus.
• Email design and front-end skills: HTML and CSS email, or an advanced template builder, with strong visual taste.
• Hands-on experience launching, auditing, or improving a rewards, referral, or loyalty program (for example Bubblehouse, Smile, etc.).
• Strong comfort with numbers: cohorts, repeat purchase rate, churn, lifetime value, and margin. You can build and read a spreadsheet without help.
• Experience working with a founder-led brand under $5M in annual revenue and a small team, where you wear many hats and make decisions without layers of approval.
• The ability to work independently, manage your own priorities, and meet deadlines on a part-time schedule.
• Clear, error-free writing.

Compensation

Details

Monthly retainer

$4,500 to $6,500 USD per month for 15–20 hours per week, based on experience

Pay and hours reviewed after 90 days, with room to grow as the role grows

Built to grow: This role starts as fractional. We review pay and hours after 90 days. If the flow audit and the loyalty plan deliver, the hours, the pay, and the scope can grow with the business.