How often do you contact users of your app? No, I don’t mean your developer mailing list. Not even your “user help” mailing list. How often do you send an e-mail to your users- just to say hi and give them a hug?
Here’s a great example. Things is an app for Mac OS X for keeping track of tasks. It’s a nice app. Recently I got this e-mail since I used the pre-1.0 version (before I switched to Ubuntu).
Now, most likely your app won’t need to say thanks for a pre-release sale, or offer a discount code. But what this message boils down to is “Thanks for using our app. Here’s a bit of news. We love you.” That may seem silly. But it’s what a lot of marketing is about. Those cools Apple ads? Part of it is to attract new users. But part of it is to make people already using it proud they do.
Tell them you love them. They’ll love you for it.