After someone signs up at comeandtrycroquet.com, two things happen at once. A volunteer contacts them to book a taste test session. And the email sequence starts: nine emails over four weeks, running alongside the in-person programme. While they're coming to the club, playing, and meeting people, the emails keep croquet present between visits.

How it works

The nine emails alternate between two kinds of content:

• Head emails link to articles about the game: the three fundamental shots, how croquet strategy works, what competition looks like, why the best players are the calmest. These give someone enough understanding to feel like they know what they're walking into.
• Heart emails tell stories about club life: what it's like when members know your name, why people keep coming back for years, the moment you realise you're a regular. These show what club life looks like from the inside.

The final email, on day 28, is a direct invitation to join.

Every email links to an article on news.croquetqld.org. The come-and-try emails, the club newsletter, and the news site all run on the same platform. Different content for each, built the same way. Once the platform's running, adding more is straightforward.

How it connects to the IDEALS

Keep It Simple: Once it's built, the sequence runs on its own. No volunteer has to remember to follow up. No one chases leads with a clipboard.

Enjoy Croquet: The emails are worth reading on their own terms. People who never end up playing croquet have found them interesting, and that's the bar we hold them to.

Hit Croquet's Aims: Every email moves someone closer to joining, or helps them decide croquet isn't for them. Both outcomes are useful because neither wastes the volunteer's time.

Co-operate for Croquet: The articles in the sequence are the same ones clubs share and the newsletter sends out. One set of content, used everywhere.

Why it matters

Someone who fills in a form at comeandtrycroquet.com has given us permission to contact them. That permission is fragile. One email that feels like spam, one message that wastes their time, and they're gone.

So every email has to earn the next one.

The Head/Heart alternation does this deliberately. A strategy article, then a story about belonging, then a coaching article, then "You're starting to look like a regular." The reader never gets the same type twice in a row.

This is permission marketing. The emails are anticipated (they signed up), personal (matched to their nearest club), and relevant (about the thing they expressed interest in). Fall below that bar and you've lost them.

What it solves

The gap between visits is where people drift away. They had a great time on Saturday. By Wednesday, life has filled back in. By the following Saturday, they meant to come but didn't quite get around to it.

The emails fill that gap. On Tuesday, an article about the three shots they were practising last week. On Friday, a story about someone who joined a club and found they belonged. They arrive at the next club day having thought about croquet at least twice since the last one.

Without the sequence, the club only exists in the moments someone is physically there. With it, croquet stays present all week.

This is version one

The copy is written. The structure is set. But this sequence needs testing and refining.

What gets opened? Where do people click? Which email loses them? Does the Head/Heart rhythm work, or do people prefer one over the other? Is four weeks too long, too short, or about right?

We won't know until real sign-ups go through it. The first few hundred people will teach us what to rewrite. The sequence will get better with data, not guessing.

The sequence