In a great infograph from SalesForce, we can see quite a number of apps that small business owners could be using to help run their business from their smartphone. According to their research, roughly a third of U.S. small business owners are using these kinds of apps, for tasks like banking or customer relationship management. But that means that over two thirds of small business owners are missing out on this technological opportunity to be flexible in their management.

Though it is often overlooked, your email signature is one of the easiest and most effective marketing tools that every professional can use. Many people like to make their signatures fun and catchy, to try and reflect their personality, while others may skip the exercise entirely. We'll explain why signatures are important and what some of the best guidelines are to ensuring your signature's success.

What is an Email Signature?

Every email program supports the ability to set one or more signatures. The signature is simply a block of information that is automatically added to the bottom of each of your emails. A signature can contain text, links and images. You can usually specify whether or not it's appended to both new messages and replies, and you can usually have multiple signatures and default signatures for multiple email accounts.

One of the easiest ways to promote your business and your website is through your email address. Instead of advertising for your internet service provider, you could be advertising your domain name!

If you own a domain and web hosting, you should have the ability to create professional email addresses for yourself. If your website is hosted with The Social Media Hat for instance, you can have as many email addresses, forwarding accounts and auto responders as you want.

Then, each time you send an email or share your address with someone, it should include your domain name.

Using an email address from your website also reinforces the impression that you are serious about your business. Owning a domain name and a website gives your business a more professional image. Your customers today expect that you will have a website where they can find out more about you, and an email address that they can use to communicate with you.