You have to understand how many marketing companies work. As a small company or individual, you will not be able to compete with them. Large marketing companies buy in bulk, so they get great deals that you won´t get. Those companies are NOT paying $37,500 to print on the back of those receipts. Instead, the companies are paying $1M and are getting TV, Radio and ´print´ advertisements.
Yeah, I know how that works,
@PeterS . But I'm trying to find the break-in point because there is always an on-ramp, and every now and then you come across a good way to advertise locally...but anymore, a lot of these companies are so cut-throat and clickish in serving only the Fortune 1000 companies or close to that they don't care or cater to anyone even in a middle-sized business without trying to get them for every penny they can. Not everyone has 1 million to throw at advertising as a startup, or even a medium-sized business doing business for years. You have to understand how money management works for people who are not millionaires or billionaires already to be able to afford to spend that much on advertising to begin with.
An alternative to advertising on the back of receipts that I've seen is on the back of those stickers you put in your car window to show you paid for the meter to use the car park for however many hours. This seems especially likely to work if it's for an car based business though. I've seen coupons for a certain percentage off fuel or a free drink at a fuel station for example, and those always seem to get used.
However, I'm not sure how much they'd get used if the business being advertised was less relevant. I've also seen adverts for eye tests and most of those seemed to end up littering the floor of the car park.
That's actually a good idea @colcolgooh but I would need a lot of people doing that. Even if you wrap a car for $1,000 a month and pay someone to drive it at that rate, there are only so many places they can be seen at once. You can still get good advertising that way on the freeway, city streets, and anywhere they drive but your idea would work well if there were enough people to place a sticker on their back window or side of their car to where they'd agree to maybe $20 or $30 a month instead per car, to get 50x more advertising than what a car wrap would give.
I don't know if this type of advertising is already being done in other countries. But in Metro Manila, the newspaper distributor is earning on the side by accepting advertisements - flyers and leaflets that they insert in the newspaper often on Sundays. When you open the paper, there would be 2 or 3 leaflets of pizza or burger and sometimes real estate ads or even cars. The newspaper distributor said they are paid a good enough amount for that service. What's good is that it is not illegal.
It's great that it is not yet illegal to do that in the Phils.
@Corzhens . In the US, it is (technically) if you are delivering a newspaper and insert that. It didn't used to be 10 or 12 years ago, but they changed the laws on it to where if someone wanted to push the issue, they could sue or fine the business, the person inserting it, or both because (they claim) that it is giving for cheap or free the same quality of advertisement that the people who pay millions for advertising (and can afford to) are given through the newspaper, and that somehow it harms their business despite them being able to legally cut you out of being able to advertise at their level altogether. So, even though it shouldn't be illegal at all...in some places, it is now.
@SirJoe The idea to place leaflets on cars and in other places is also a good way (on a very small scale or budget) to advertise that I used when I was younger, but alas...even that has been made to not be legal or can be fined in some places now. The owners of businesses and cars of jerks who decide to make a big deal out of a flyer on their windshield have claimed that it leads to litter or paper that they have to clean up when parties throw them on the ground. That, or it conflicts with businesses in their area. Really, it used to be perfectly legal years ago to do this, but it's just people being petty and trying to prevent others from making it or seeing an opportunity to go after someone that has replaced industriousness with sue-happy petty folk now. I wish that wasn't the case, but I was researching local laws here yesterday and seeing that you can't even post things on telephone poles anymore, because even the city will try to fine you for it between $1,000 to $50,000 (!) per unauthorized post, because they claim that they "own the pole, and that you're engaging in business practices which harm their advertisement companies they enlist for billboards and bus stops".
It's ridiculous, and if you had a way to anonymously offer something, you might still be able to since they wouldn't be able to call a number or find the person advertising freely as you always used to be able to...but anymore, they limit what avenues you can use to advertise effectively, and try to charge you as much as they can to make sure only their "clique" is able to afford it and participate in reaching the masses.
This is why you see people holding signs for local businesses and dancing on a street corners with them, because they cannot (yet) fine or go after someone who is a living being and holding a sign, walking with it, or displaying it while they are standing on a sidewalk or anywhere else.
I'm trying to find massive ways to effectively break in to that level of advertising without being one of the Lehman brothers to be able to afford it. Not just for myself, but also for friends and their friends who are looking at alternative ways to advertise their business with how things are economically in 2016.
Thank you all for your suggestions! I welcome more if you have them, or if anyone else would like to contribute. I'm very serious about trying to help new businesses with this, and am willing to try some of them out myself for things I am already doing. Having this here on YPayz will help others to do the same with your help. :) Thanks