Sr Manager Loyalty & Retention

Follett Higher Education•Westchester, IL

About The Position

Follett Higher Education is a leading educational service provider and omnichannel retailer that provides students, faculty and staff, parents, and fans with the course materials, learning tools, and retail services needed to successfully support the collegiate journey. Follett Higher Education supports over 6 million students through its 1,100 physical and 1,750 eCommerce campus stores across North America. The Senior Manager of Loyalty and Retention is a key strategic and executional leader within Follett's Consumer Marketing organization. This role is responsible for launching, managing, and scaling Follett's enterprise loyalty program across more than 1,000 campus store locations and all ecommerce digital properties. The position owns the end-to-end loyalty experience - from program architecture and technology implementation to member engagement, retention strategy, and revenue performance. This role leads the partnership with development agency P3 and manages Follett's implementation of the Talon One loyalty software platform. The Senior Manager will work cross-functionally with marketing, technology, store operations, and merchandising teams to ensure the loyalty program drives measurable revenue growth, deepens customer relationships, and strengthens Follett's competitive position across physical and digital retail channels. Retention initiatives will also be a key focal point for this position, working with the Organic, Paid, and Campaign development teams to launch and maintain retention campaigns.

Requirements

Bachelor's degree in a related field or equivalent.
5-7 years of experience in loyalty, CRM, lifecycle marketing, or customer retention, preferably in retail or ecommerce.
Experience managing or supporting loyalty programs and customer engagement initiatives with measurable business impact.
Demonstrated ability to lead complex, cross-functional projects and drive execution across multiple stakeholders.
Experience using marketing technology or loyalty platforms to support program development and optimization.
Strong analytical skills with experience tracking performance metrics and using data to inform strategy.
Experience working with external vendors or agencies to deliver marketing or technology solutions.

Responsibilities

Lead the end-to-end launch of Follett's loyalty program in partnership with development agency P3, using the Talon One platform.
Own the program roadmap, manage timelines and deliverables, and ensure a successful rollout across 1,000+ physical campus stores and all ecommerce websites.
Serve as the internal product owner for Talon One, overseeing configuration, testing, integrations, and ongoing feature deployment.
Own the loyalty program's revenue contribution targets.
Develop and execute strategies that drive member acquisition, engagement, repeat purchase, and increased average order value across both in-store and digital channels.
Establish KPIs, reporting cadences, and dashboards to track program performance and continuously optimize for revenue impact.
Achieve enrollment targets for loyalty program membership.
Build, deliver, and maintain the loyalty program performance reporting infrastructure and dashboards.
Establish and maintain a data-driven member lifecycle communication program with measurable engagement benchmarks.
Responsible for the multi-year loyalty program roadmap and presentation to senior leadership.
Design and execute a full-funnel loyalty member lifecycle strategy - from enrollment and onboarding through active engagement and win-back.
Develop personalized, data-driven communications and offers that deepen member relationships, increase program participation, and reduce churn.
Partner with the broader Lifecycle Marketing team to integrate loyalty into email, SMS, and other owned channels.
Drive Retention strategy beyond loyalty and collaborate with cross-functional teams to increase retention rate across eCommerce and brick & mortar.
Serve as the primary point of contact for loyalty across internal teams, including technology/IT, store operations, merchandising, ecommerce, and finance.
Partner with store operations teams to ensure in-store loyalty execution is seamless and staff are trained and equipped to support the program.
Build business cases and present program updates and recommendations to senior leadership.
Lead and manage the day-to-day relationship with the loyalty development agency (currently P3) and the Talon One platform loyalty vendor, or others.
Hold agencies accountable to project timelines, deliverables, and quality standards.
Evaluate and recommend new loyalty capabilities, tools, or integrations that drive program performance and competitive differentiation.