American Custom Exteriors and Interiors, a Rochester company, has been shortlisted as a finalist for the U.S. Chamber of Commerce’s 2014 DREAM BIG Small Business of the Year Award, which would honor them as being the best small business in the entire country.

Come June, the three owners will travel to D.C. to attend the ceremony, which will award a grand prize of $10,000 to the winning business.

In order to be eligible for the award, business must have fewer than 250 employees, and have had gross revenues of less than $20 million in 2011 and 2012. Judges will look at businesses’ staff training and motivation, customer service, community involvement, and business strategies and goals.

Though many other local business applaud American Custom Exteriors and Interiors on the success, they wonder how they can get their own businesses ahead and into a similar position. Obviously it’s a matter of putting the customers’ needs ahead of profits in order to build a strong reputation, but that takes time. Isn’t there a faster way to get a head?

Of course there is! Why do you think so many corporations spend billion on marketing? In 2010, Hewlett-Packard dropped $1 billion on advertising, Citigroup spent $1.6 billion, and General Motors spent a whopping $4.2 billion! Naturally, small business can’t spend such exorbitant amounts on marketing, but the case is clear: advertising matters.

Thanks to the Internet, there are several new ways to reach potential customers. Namely, video marketing. According to an analysis from MarketingCharts, advertisers spend about $225 on each TV viewer per year, but only spend $144 reaching each Internet user. This shows that online video marketing is an affordable alternative to traditional marketing for any business owner who wants to pull ahead of the competition. Plus, video marketing is incredibly effective. In fact, 60% of marketers say that video emails improve lead conversions, with a staggering 82% saying it’s effective. After all, consumers who watch videos are more likely to make a purchase than when there aren’t videos present, as reported by SocialTimes.

Though the DREAM BIG Small Business of the Year Award doesn’t judge a company’s marketing campaign, advertising is nonetheless crucial to pull ahead. Perhaps with the right advertising strategies, your own business might be in the same position as American Customer Exteriors and Interiors this time next year.