Meet Chief Explainer, Bianca Baker

If you’re wondering about the state of affairs in email marketing going forward, you’ll want to stay for this one: 

“Imagine you were internet dating and this is the first date ever.

Would you go up to them and just be like, ‘Hi, my name’s Brad. Do you want to get married?’

Probably not, because they’re going to be like, ‘No! You’re a weirdo, Brad. I know nothing about you, why would I be ready to marry you?’”

Brafton’s Head of Email, Bianca Baker, advises those entering the email race to “you know, take it easy.” Email’s a long-haul strategy. 

Meet Bianca: Brafton’s Explainer-in-Chief

Despite the prim title, Bianca’s role is anything but narrow. On a given day, she might be writing copy, redesigning HubSpot templates, explaining backend web “situations” to clients, or lead scoring, none of which were advertised in the job description. 

Her ascent at Brafton has been brisk yet grounded, progressing from email marketing specialist to specialist-slash-SEO hybrid, and ultimately to her current role as department lead. Along the way, and through random add-on jobs, she became the unofficial explainer-in-chief for anything vaguely technical.

“When in doubt, Bianca will explain it,” she says with a shrug. 

This aptitude for filling in the blanks has earned her somewhat of a reputation internally — the woman with a thousand hats and not a single idle neuron.

Her approach isn’t accidental. With an entrepreneurial background, she’s already covered basically every facet of marketing. “I built and coded my own website and took care of everything that needed to happen to have a holistic marketing strategy.”

Marathons to Marketing: A Woman of Many Talents

Outside the office, Bianca’s titles include mom, wife, runner and former athletic coach. She’ll tell you that training for marathons has a fair amount in common with email marketing. 

“When you coach an athlete, it’s all about periodization. Nothing happens tomorrow, and consistency is key.” 

Athletes need to build a foundation over time so they can peak at the right moment. Email strategies operate likewise. The foundational work you put in now gets you to a point where you can peak at competition time.

“You need to understand that you may not win tomorrow, but each time you send something, you’re moving somebody further down this funnel,” Bianca shares.

And while it may sound romantic, rest assured, emails and marathons do have their differences. 

When you’re training, you’re always thinking about the next goal and how to build toward it. With email, you also create a progressive strategy, but it’s more layered: you’re working toward multiple goals at the same time, guiding lots of people at different stages of their own journey. Some are just starting, some are close to converting and some have already crossed a “finish line.”

On top of that, each group needs something different at the right time. So, unlike achieving a half-marathon goal, where the finish line is a clear end, an email strategy keeps running and running and running.

How To Earn Email Attention

Want to write emails that get opened in 2025? It’s hard, but doable. “If someone’s trusted you enough to allow you into their inbox, you need to prove your value in every single email,” Bianca says.

People mostly care about themselves. It’s not necessarily bad; it just means you need to show them why they should care about what you’re sending them immediately. If they don’t care, they won’t click and they will unsubscribe. She’d know. “If you come to my inbox and I think it’s nonsense or I didn’t ask for it, I unsubscribe or you get marked as spam. You should have known better because that’s how most people treat irrelevant emails today. One bad send and you’re out.”

So, how do you make your audience care? 

Bianca on Subject Lines

Subject lines should inspire action, evoke curiosity or offer something useful. “Marketing is either helping, inspiring or entertaining; those are the three pillars. It’s about sending the right message to the right person at the right time.”

 And you can be the one sending that message, provided you segment your list properly. 

Segmenting Your List

Segmentation is non-negotiable. Bianca would tell you to: 

• Segment your audience.
• Understand their pain points.
• Understand their needs. 
• Show empathy toward their experience.
• Have a solution.

You’ll know you’re doing it right if you’re seeing strong engagement — opens, clicks and conversions. If you’re not, you need to tinker and reiterate. It might sound like a lot of work, but smart automation, based on behavior, lifecycle stage or engagement, makes this scalable.

Going AI? Combine It With Data

There’s a time and a place for everything, including AI. It can be a powerful support tool — great for ideation, subject line variants or performance analysis — but it still needs strategic oversight. It can’t replace audience insight.

Bianca advises analyzing, auditing and staying as data-focused as possible. “If there’s something to test, you should be testing it.”

Between Glass and Plastic: Bianca’s Balance of Showing Up Fully

Bianca communicates with candor that borders on incisive, and it’s infused with warmth — especially when the topic turns to her daughter. “Being a mom is a big part of my life right now. I want her to see that you can work hard and do something you’re passionate about.” 

When her daughter is home, Bianca finds balance where she can, informing clients that her four-year-old assistant may be joining her.

Unsurprisingly, balance and adaptation seem to be at the crux of Bianca’s success. “Living the life of an immigrant forces you to adapt constantly,” she says. “That’s a skill that translates almost perfectly into marketing.”

She rather elegantly admits that life in today’s day and age is a juggle. “You just need to know which balls are glass and which are plastic — which can be dropped and which can’t — and keep as many glass balls in the sky as possible.”

Undoubtedly, Bianca has something to teach us all — not only from her perspective, but also from her dynamic success in email, marketing and life in general.