Consider this: An association for environmental professionals tests a new strategy when it sends its quarterly newsletter. Each recipient received a version of the email that felt tailored just for them, with urban planners getting webinar invites on sustainable zoning and environmental lawyers receiving curated updates on regulatory shifts. However, the association’s staff didn’t add these personal touches manually. Instead, they leveraged AI tools to generate dynamic content based on CRM data and prior email engagement.
Personalization is no longer optional to deepen member engagement and drive meaningful interactions—it’s expected. By extension, AI tools and tactics are a must-have to scale those personalized tactics and foster long-term relationships. This post explores four creative ways to personalize your association’s communications using AI.
1. Use AI to Segment Members
Audience segmentation isn’t a new concept, but AI makes it smarter, faster, and more dynamic. Instead of static lists, you can build dynamic segments that adjust based on changes in members’ behavior, preferences, and engagement history.
Follow these key steps to segment members in real time using AI:
- Integrate your systems. Fíonta’s guide to Salesforce for associations recommends selecting a CRM that can serve as a single source of truth—in other words, it should integrate seamlessly with other tools (like your AMS) and offer scalable, customizable capabilities. Returning to the previous example, the environmental organization needs to connect its email marketing platform to its CRM to train the AI tool effectively.
- Track behavioral and engagement data. Leverage your CRM and marketing platforms to track engagement metrics like email opens and clicks and first-party data like membership status, demographic details, and interest in specific topics.
- Analyze the data for patterns. Next, use AI tools to identify common traits and behaviors that indicate different member needs or preferences.
- Craft dynamic segments. Last, use AI to automatically segment members based on the commonalities identified in the previous step. For instance, the tool might create the following segments based on engagement level: curious new members, active explorers, invested contributors, and members at risk of lapsing. As members’ tenure increases or their engagement levels change, so will the segment they’re sorted into.
You can use these segments to strengthen various association initiatives, from boosting engagement with certain resources to enhancing retention. For example, you might increase retention rates by targeting your most engaged members with tailored member appreciation messages.
2. Curate Personalized Email Newsletters
While traditional email newsletters provide an effective avenue for maintaining regular contact with members, sending out one newsletter with broad appeal to your entire membership base is an outdated tactic. Instead, innovative associations are experimenting with personalized, AI-curated newsletters tailored to individual interests. This approach boosts engagement by ensuring each message is relevant to the recipient.
Explore these quick tips and ideas to inspire your next email newsletter:
- Use the right technology. Leverage AI-powered email marketing tools alongside your CRM to craft personalized newsletters. Tailor these messages to each member’s event attendance history or consider resources they’ve read in the past, increasing relevance and reducing content fatigue.
- Craft timely, relevant content. AI tools can recommend content, events, and learning opportunities that are fine-tuned to each member’s goals and behaviors, but they are only effective if you have a deep library of relevant resources for them to pull from. Regularly study your member segments and develop engaging content or events that align with their interests. This way, you’ll always have fresh content that members will want to explore.
- Include a human touch and oversight. For some members, AI-powered messages may feel impersonal or inauthentic. Make sure to add a warm, human touch by including elements like human-selected “editor’s picks” (e.g., “Read David’s favorite post from August”), which builds trust and balances automation with curation.
Additionally, BWF’s guide to responsible AI usage explains that human oversight is crucial to maintaining legal compliance, data privacy, and security. The guide suggests creating an AI oversight committee, manually assessing data and modeling processes, and addressing complex issues or conflicts with human intervention.
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3. Generate Dynamic Content Tailored to the Reader
AI tools can analyze which subject lines, calls to action, and turns of phrase resonate most with different users and then personalize marketing messages or web pages at scale. This might mean creating modular email templates where certain blocks (text, images, offers) adjust based on user data, or serving members tailored content recommendations when they log into their member portal.
For example, associations might implement the following dynamic content blocks:
- Localized greetings or event callouts (e.g., “See you in Austin next month!” for Texas-based members).
- Featured blog articles or videos that may resonate based on previous behavior.
- Progress updates toward certification, volunteer milestones, or annual goals (e.g., “Dive back into your digital marketing certification—you’ve already completed 73% of the course!”).
- Custom testimonials or member stories from peers with similar roles or interests.
While effective, analyzing member data, syncing your tech stack, and generating these dynamic experiences can be difficult for busy association professionals. Consider working with a team of tech experts to help you plan and execute this strategy.
4. Surface Personalized Recommendations
As mentioned, tailored recommendations can add a personal touch to your communications with members. Current, active members will stay in the loop for new resources and offerings, while these recommendations can also be used to re-engage lost members.
AI tools can tap into the valuable member data stored in your association’s CRM and put the following insights to work by generating personalized touchpoints:
- Past event attendance and profile attributes: Use AI to recommend events tailored to a member’s history, job title, geographic location, or expressed interests. For example, a member who previously attended climate policy briefings and works in urban planning might receive invitations to zoning-related webinars.
- Interactions with staff members or chatbots: Track the topics or requests members discuss during support calls, live chats, or sessions with AI agents better to understand their pain points or areas of interest. For instance, AI can trigger follow-up emails with relevant deadlines, course suggestions, or reminders if a member inquires about certification renewal.
- Certification and login behavior: Suggest continuing education content based on a member’s completed certifications or how they interact with your learning management system (LMS). AI can detect interest patterns and nudge members toward content that complements their learning goals or career trajectory.
- Utilization data: Remind members of underused benefits by leveraging AI to identify which resources or perks they have yet to access (e.g., downloadable toolkits, member-exclusive reports, webinar series).
- Portal interaction history: Using this data, you can prompt your AI tools to surface overlooked content sections and direct traffic where engagement is lacking. Based on what each user typically views or skips, link back to high-value areas of your member portal. ng staff members from different departments to set up your new software implementation for success. Including different departments will engage staff and foster a sense of shared ownership in the rollout.
Drive Membership Value With Personalization
If your association is just starting with AI personalization, integrate your communication platforms with your database and association management software. From there, test a small, manageable tactic, like AI-curated newsletter content or personalized event invites, before scaling to full lifecycle automation. These personalized tactics deliver more value to members, at scale and with less manual lift for your team.
