VTEX, a cloud based e-commerce platform founded in Brazil around the start of the millennium, dubs itself a “20-year-old startup” because of its ever-evolving nature. Jade Lim Maravillas, global head of marketing enablement and Bernardo Lemgruber, head of content and brand marketing, join Shaheen Samavati today to discuss the history of the company and their recent evolutions, including their expansion into new markets, the establishment of a full-fledged marketing department (for the first time, ever) and the creation and distribution of digital content like never before.

They also touch on the growth of their branded events, including VTEX Day, which is the third largest e-commerce event in the world (plus the largest in Latin America), and boasts an impressive history of keynote speakers, including Barack Obama. The company now has its headquarters in London, where Jade and Bernardo are based, and operates worldwide.

You can watch the full conversation in the video above or on YouTube, and listen to the podcast on Apple or Spotify.

Rapid-fire recs

  • Favorite books:
    • Deep Work by Cal Newport. “I read this earlier this year and it inspired me to take advantage of early mornings without any meetings to be productive and get ‘deep’ work done.” – Bernardo
    • Building a Story Brand by Donald Miller. “Being in B2B technology it’s easier to build campaign messaging on how great our technology is. Using this framework is a departure from that, and by putting our customers as the hero in our brand story mimics the way we see them in our organization anyway.” – Jade
    • Reinventing Organizations by Frederic Laloux. “This is a great book that in my opinion just hasn’t been promoted enough.” – Bernardo
  • Learning resources:
    • B2B Institute. “Every single piece of content they’ve come up with has been such a valuable resource for me. – Jade
    • The Marketing Examples newsletter. “It’s a good newsletter on marketing. It’s short, but filled with interesting stuff.” – Bernardo
    • Think Fast Talk Smart podcast. “This podcast always gives great insights in a short amount of time.” – Bernardo
    • Behind the Numbers podcast. “I love this one because they offer really good conversations filled with relevant information.” – Bernardo
  • Productivity hacks: 
    • Multitasking. “Listening to audio stuff or podcasts when cleaning or putting my daughter out to school.” – Jade
    • Prioritizing mornings. “Getting the bigger tasks done in the morning when I tend to be less interrupted, and then reserving the afternoons for meetings and other things.” – Bernardo
  • Favorite tool:
    • Miro. “We use it for everything from planning, to brainstorming and developing new ideas.” – Bernardo
  • Sources of inspiration:
    • Donald Miller. “We love Donald Miller because his approach really makes sense for us, and his storytelling background makes a potentially dry topic really engaging.” – Jade and Bernardo
    • Seth Godin. “His view on how marketing shapes culture is something us marketers need to remind ourselves repeatedly as we can get distracted about this purpose in our day-to-day tasks.” – Jade 
    • Simon Sinek. “Simon’s theories on marketing and leadership are so fundamental to our being humans that anyone can relate and apply these in their lives, and become richer, more empathetic and more optimistic.” – Jade

What really resonates with your audience is putting them as a protagonist and you as the guide—the Yoda to the Luke Skywalker. Everyone sees themselves as the Luke Skywalker in their own lives, so why would you put yourself as the Luke Skywalker in that person’s life and not have that connection?

– Jade Maravillas

Connect with Jade, Bernardo and Shaheen on LinkedIn.

This post was edited by Jamie Albert.

For more insights into creating a content strategy:

Use customer data to address pain points – Jaime Lee, head of content strategy at AdRoll

Create content with a purpose – Jack Dyson, global head of content strategy

How to get quality inbound leads with a killer content marketing strategy

To see the full transcript, click on page number two below.