How to Use Community Bulletin Boards?

Hello!

I am in need of some advice about how to advertise for a small business (retail/school combo) here in Yokohama.
I have two main questions:

1) How do you obtain permission to post on a community bulletin board (伝言版)?
I asked at my local community center, and they said that most of the boards around town are owned by the City of Yokohama and citizens can't post on them.
However, I was able to find one so far that is free for anyone to use--there are already flyers on this board for private foreign language classes, etc.
Unfortunately, any information that may have been written on this board regarding posting permission has been worn away.
I tried searching online about this sort of thing, but the only results I got were about posting on the City of Yokohama-run boards, which apparently my small business doesn't have permission to do.
Any ideas?

2) Any other recommended methods/media through which we can effectively advertise?
Here's what we've been utilizing so far:
-Handing out flyers
-Storefront advertising
-Social media (multiple platforms)
-Word-of-mouth recommendations

Any advice / recommendations would be greatly appreciated!! Thank you in advance for your time.

-EKtsubaki

When I was living in a share house, I saw many hand sized flyers on the board, which was sent to share house by postal mail
or handed. Mamager attached them if they were not illegal. This could be one of options, if you chose share houses which your targeted people seems to be living?

I have also seen people who were offering lessons on a kind of language exchange site, called jcinfo.net, but I am not sure if you can advertise any businesses.

As far as I know, the public keijiban (or any public-run media), at least here in Yokohama, are only available for non-profit purposes. It's alright to take money for your purpose, but the amount should be only enough to cover the expenses, and not for your income.

If it is indeed non-profit, you can start by asking your han-cho, who may lead you to the cho-nai-kai-cho, who may lead you to other cho-nai-kai-cho.

The cho-nai-kai-cho is the person who takes care of the neighborhood which is ultimately divided into "han" led by the han-cho. Your landlord would know who your han-cho is. Or the han-cho is basically the person who is in charge of distributing the "kai-ran-ban" (circulation notice).

Meanwhile, I don't know what kind of a business you are running, but I notice that a lot of language-related businesses charge more than the amount that people would be interested in spending. For example, I see a lot of people gathering for a "one-coin" lesson/business, while if you charge few thousand yen for an hour of conversation, people tend to think, "I can have that conversation for free if I go to a bar."

The city I am living is almost same. For example, if you organize an English cafe for chat and coffee as an English speaker and charge only expense for coffee, its advertisement is okay. However, if you organize English conversation lessons as an English teacher and charge lesson fees, its advertisement is not allowed. Unfortunately, cho-nai-kai or jichi-kai in my area handles things for members only (tenants themselves are required to be a member), I hope one in your place has different policy.