We all use email every day. And while social media gets most of the buzz, it’s the real e-mail that gets the work done, day in and day out.

All of this means that if you own and operate a small business, you need to be sure that you’re taking full advantage of this wonderful tool. Step one is paying attention to how you come across when you send emails to other people.

Here are two big mistakes that I see – over and over again – in my work with solo professionals and small business clients:

1. A generic or hard-to-understand “from” line. Most of us pay a lot of attention to the “subject” line of our emails. It’s the headline and the thing that entices people to open our emails in the first place.

But the “from” line is even more important. Why? Because that tells the recipient who is sending the e-mail in the first place. If it’s a friend, relative, or company I do business with, I’m very likely to open it (regardless of the subject line). If I don’t recognize the sender, I’m very likely to assume it’s spam and click delete.

Yesterday, for example, I got an email message from “Deborah,” with a blank subject line. Well, I don’t know any Deborah’s. I was one second away from deleting it until I remembered a woman named Debbie who works in customer service for one of my clients.

Sure enough, she was sending me some important information. It made me wonder: How many of her emails are regularly deleted?

Another common mistake of this sort is when the “from” line is simply an email address. That’s okay if your full name is part of your address, but not so good if your email address is something like smilebabe340@outlook.com.

What’s the solution? Try something like this: First and Last Name | Company. My first and last name, followed by my company name, either of which may help you realize who I am. (You’ll find the vertical separator line that I use – “|” – below the backspace, near the top right of your keyboard.)

2. Not using a custom domain for email. You may not know this, but if you own a domain (e.g., www.mycompany.com), you can create e-mail addresses (name@mycompany.com) that use that domain name (and at no additional cost).

Unfortunately, I frequently see emails from small businesses and solo professionals who use Gmail, Hotmail, Outlook, Yahoo!, and other providers to act as their domain. An example is companyname@gmail.com.

Not only does this approach paint you as a hobbyist (as opposed to someone who’s really in business) it also represents a missed opportunity to help people find your website. When you create an email address that uses your custom domain, you are constantly advertising your company, as well as where it can be found on the web.

Like any tool, email is only as good as how it’s used. Polish up your approach and start getting the full benefit from this important aspect of your business!