There are lots of reasons to want your users to update their phone apps. Anything from APIs changing, bug fixes, or driving users and profits through improved UX can be a good reason to get users to update ASAP. Updating apps is not something people regularly do (even Apple knows most iPhone users don't even sync their phones at all), so here's a technique to make it happen.

This tip is courtesy of Hotel Tonight, who sent me an email today demonstrating the technique, and inspiring the post.

Step 1

Send your users an email with a tantalizing subject line

More free money? Sure I'll open this. I signed up for the product to save money on hotels, so linking the subject line directly to that core value is effective.

Step 2

Follow through on that offer quickly

Step 3

Remind users that they need to update their app in order to get the benefit.

Step 4

Wait for people to see what you did there, and then blog about it, driving more users to your app.

See what I did there?