• by Chad Capellman , July 2, 2010

Picture this: You've been trying to get time to visit with a doctor in his office to speak with him about the newest offering from your pharmaceutical company. He's busy. He gives you the run-around. The whole time you're talking, he's thinking about other things. He quite possibly resents that you're there, which means he resents *you*.

Not exactly the best way to make a pitch.

But what if you could become someone who:

a) Could easily fit into his schedule, even to the point of being invited to his *home*

b) Had his undivided attention while you made your pitch

c) Moved the needle closer to "friend" status

To quote Ray Kinsella in the movie "Field of Dreams," "There is a place where things like that happen. And if you want to go there, I can take you."

So how much is this worth to you?

The solution: An iPad. The price: Approximately $600.

Here's how it works:

With a few simple steps, you can do two things to customize the iPad to use as a promotional vehicle for your company: 1) Customize the background image and 2) Make a compelling shortcut to a customized web page.

Branding the iPad

Create a 1024 x 1024 pixel image that features your company's logo in a clean, relaxed setting, with a little info about the product you'd like them to learn more about. For background examples to inspire your creative vision, check this out.

Unfortunately, on an iPad, you can't save files directly off a web browser like you can on a computer. But as they say, "there's an app for that." In this case, the $2.99 Photo Transfer App does the job nicely. After you install it, the app enables you to transfer photos and videos directly from your computer to the device.

Use this app to move your new background image to the iPad. Do this by going to *Settings* then *Brightness & Wallpaper* and choose the image of your current wallpaper. You can choose to *select own image* from the photo collection on the iPad.

A one-tap trip to your web site

First, make a simplified HTML5-compliant web page that promotes your product. Make sure the "favicon" -- that unique graphic element you see that designates a page in a tab of your favorite browser -- is compatible for an iPad. You can find a helpful tutorial on how to make the icon here.

Next, we want to make that customized web page available to the doctor. Do this by visiting the page on the iPad, clicking on the big plus sign next to the URL window in Safari, and choosing the "Add to Home Screen" option.

Close Safari and locate the icon on your home screen. Press your finger on it until every icon gets an "x" in its top-left corner and all of the icons wiggle. (I like to think of them as all being nervous.) Move the icon to a position you'd like it to appear on the screen.

This process of adding web page icons could obviously be repeated if you wanted to present an entire suite of information about a wide range of products and offerings from your company.

Just the beginning ...

This strategy can be expanded to include robust iPad apps, or specially crafted videos that could be loaded on the device to help tell the full story of your offerings.

The magic of a device like the iPad is that it moves us one step closer to being limited only by our own imagination. For those who choose to embrace it, the possibilities, and the payoffs, are limitless.