That does not sound particularly attractive or glamorous, does it? Don’t shut me off though – hear me out and you might think differently of placemats before the end of this post. I actually got the idea for this post from Small Biz Survival – same place where I found the simple article on accounting for small businesses. In his post, the blogger highlighted the idea of perceiving common everyday things in different ways. It’s kind of like the “glass half full or glass half empty” thing.

Anyway, he shared an experience wherein he saw placemats being used for ads:

I’m from a big town. 300,000 people live within 14 miles of me. It’s almost the smallest town I’ve lived in.

When I look at a placemat like this, I think “small town.”

It’s an advertising medium designed for people without access to or budgets for large media. It’s an advertising medium designed for diners and cafes and pizza joints rather than steakhouses and chains. It’s an advertising medium with instant gratification for local businesses. (“Hey, I just saw your name on the placemat.”)

I saw this placemat last week in my big town. It was in a diner, yes. And it got me thinking.

What if you used a placemat to drive traffic to your business’s website?

Indeed, what if you used a placemat to advertise your web site? I think it is brilliant – whoever thought of doing this should be given an award or something. For small businesses operating in a relatively small area, placemat ads would provide wide coverage for a relatively small cost. What do you think?