Follow Drake to San Francisco for Eloqua Experience

Hi Eloqua friends - Drake here, your Eloqua Customer Success Tour Ambassador. Today I’m beginning my cross-country trip to Eloqua Experience 2010 where I will be working at the Eloqua University booth. I’m starting from the east coast of the US and making my way by plane and car to San Francisco, arriving on October 17. Why am I telling you this? Because you can follow me along the way, guess my route, and potentially win a $100 iTunes or Amazon gift card. Here’s how:

• Every weekday I will be posting a clue about where I am on my Facebook wall (www.facebook.com/EloquaDrake) and via Twitter (@EloquaDrake).


• You can post your guess about my location (name of the city) in the comments on my Facebook wall, then after two more moves I’ll reveal where I was.


• I’ll be keeping a tally of who has the most correct guesses and that person will win the gift card.


• Tip: You don’t have to be going to Eloqua Experience to participate, but if you are going to be there, I’ll also throw in an extra gift onsite at the event as well.

Here are a few more pieces of information about the locations I’ll be visiting:

• They’re all US cities with populations over 100,000


• When I fly, I’ll be flying on Continental non-stop


• When I drive, it will be somewhere that I can get to within 8 hours in a car (which will really only take me 6 hours, heh heh) – in other words about 500 miles.


• I won't ever backtrack - my movement will always be in the direction of San Francisco

Visit me on Facebook today for my first clue about my starting point city.

Drake Has a New Contest For You

(Guest post from Eloqua's Drake)

This is Drake, Eloqua's Success Tour Ambassador and I'm kicking off another round of Customer Success Tours beginning today in Austin, TX. Our theme for the events this quarter is "sales enablement", but actually the goal is to make you, the marketer, a hero to your sales team. Envision them giving you accolades at the next company-wide meeting...

In honor of this theme I've cajoled the folks at Eloqua into letting me host another contest on Facebook. Here's the scoop: post a picture on my Facebook wall (facebook.com/eloquadrake) that depicts marketing and sales being aligned. Think "lock-step" and "BFFs" (or whatever kids these days are saying). And most importantly, think creatively, because that's what will win the prize. You can post up to three times, so make 'em count. The deadline is September 6 (Labor Day) so you have a little time to strategize.

What's the prize? Your personal reward is a $100 iTunes or Amazon gift card (your choice) and your company reward is 10 licenses of the Eloqua Sales Toolkit which contains Eloqua for Microsoft Outlook, Eloqua Prospect Profiler and Eloqua Discover. What's Eloqua Discover? Come to a Success Tour to see a live demo of this great new tool. So it's a win-win for both you and your company.

Get started by friending me on Facebook so you can see all the postings and scope out the competition. I'm looking forward to seeing what you come up with.

(Oh – my Eloqua friends asked me to remind you that this Friday, August 13th is the early bird deadline for Eloqua Experience. You can attend for $999 if you sign up by this Friday, so what are you waiting for? After that the price goes up to $1350 – is there really anything to think about?)

Success Tour Destinations in August and September

I learned my lesson in writing post titles last time with my "Success Tour Stops in June" title. No, the tour does not stop, it was just a list of the stops on the tour. In fact, the tour is going incredibly well, and the most recent destinations have been great fun for everyone involved, and have included a growing roster of cities, like our first stop in Los Angeles.

Other stops, including Chicago, Portland, and Toronto have all of course featured a visit from Drake, who just ran a great iPad giveaway contest which resulted in him being seen (and photographed) over 200 times in cities around the world!

The full schedule of Eloqua customer success tour stops is always available on user.eloqua.com, but if you haven't had a chance to go there and find your city, the following stops are coming up in August and September:

Austin, August 11th
San Francisco, August 19th
Washington, D.C., September 2nd
New York City, September 14th
Denver, September 15th
Atlanta, September 21st

Attendance is free, just let us know you'll be there by registering on user.eloqua.com, and we'll see you there. Some great customer stories are shared at each event, and there is often a preview glimpse of Eloqua 10, and a number of other upcoming product innovations!

Follow along with the conversation on Twitter by following the #EloquaTour hashtag.

Hope to see you out at an event.