Give every attendee the right message for every meeting. Write talking points once, tailor them by position, and personalize them with merge variables.
💬 What Are Talking Points?
Talking points are the messaging your advocates bring into each office meeting. They appear automatically on every attendee's itinerary, matched to the office they're meeting with. You can customize them through options like:
- Writing one generic set that every attendee sees
- Tailoring the message by position
- Overriding the messaging for a specific office
- Personalizing every point with merge variables
- Adding your own district-level data for richer insights
✍️ Let's Write Your Talking Points
Make sure you are logged in to your AdvocacyAI account. On the navigation bar, locate the “Events” section and click on the Fly-Ins tab to search for your event. Within the fly-in, open the Talking Points tab.
Click the "Write Talking Points" button on the top right or the “Write” button next to any position to get started
#1 Choose Your Audience
Use the Write for dropdown to pick who this messaging is for.
- All offices (generic): Every attendee sees these points, no matter which office they're meeting with.
- Offices by Position: These points are added for attendees meeting offices marked with that position. These are perfect for tailoring your ask to supporters versus skeptics.
You can manage existing positions in the “Offices” section of your fly-in. You can add new positions, rename existing ones, or delete them. Learn more here.
#2 Link a Related Bill (Optional)
For federal fly-ins, use the Related bill dropdown to search by bill number or title. The bill shows up as a badge next to your talking points, so attendees know exactly what legislation the meeting is about.
This feature is only available for accounts with AdvocacyAI Pro access, which unlocks Federal Tracking. To learn more AdvocacyAI Pro access, contact us at help@advocacyai.com and we’ll be happy to provide a demo.
#3 Write or Generate Talking Points
Write your points in the editor — bold, italics, and bullets are supported, up to 8,000 characters.
Use the Insert Variable dropdown to drop merge tokens into your points. When an attendee views their itinerary, each token fills in with the details of the office they're meeting:
- [[Representative]]: The representative's full name
- [[Title]]: Senator or Representative
- [[District]]: Their district, like MO-1 (or Statewide)
- [[State]], [[Chamber]], [[Party]]: More office details
- Your own variables: Any column from your reference data CSV (more on that below)
You can also use our AI, Ada, to draft talking points for you. Open this section to learn more.
- Describe what to cover (for AI): Tell it what you want — for example, "Urge a yes vote; emphasize local jobs ([[jobs_at_stake]]) and small-business impact." — and click the "Generate" button. You'll get 3–5 short bullet points to review and edit.
- Generate All Positions: In one click, this drafts and saves talking points for your generic set and every position at once. This is a great starting point you can refine.
#4 Save
Click the "Save Talking Points" button and you're back on the overview, where you'll see a preview under each position. Use "Edit" to revise or "Remove" to start over.
📊 Add Reference Data (Optional)
Want talking points that cite local numbers (e.g. jobs at stake, businesses affected, patients served)? Upload a CSV in the Reference data card:
- Format: Include a district column (like MO-01, formats such as MO 1 or MO1 work too, and a state code alone works for statewide offices) plus any other columns you want.
- Every column becomes a merge variable: A jobs_at_stake column becomes [[JobsAtStake]] and each office's talking points fill in the value from its matching district row.
- Upload: Choose your file and click "Upload Data" (or "Replace Data" to swap in a new version, up to 20 MB).
Variables with no matching data are removed when attendees view their itinerary, so double-check that your sentences still read well without them.
🏢 Customize for a Specific Office
Sometimes one office needs a unique message. In the Office overrides card, click "Customize" next to any office to write points just for it. When set, these replace that office's position-level points. Each office shows "Custom override set" or "Using position points" so you always know what's live.
Once you customize an office’s position, you can click the “Edit Override” button to make changes or the "Reset" button to revert that office to their position's messaging.
👥 What Attendees See
No extra steps needed — every meeting on an attendee's itinerary automatically shows a Talking points section with your generic points plus the office's position points (or its override), with every variable filled in for that office and district.
➡️ What’s Next?
Your Overview dashboard walks you through the rest of the process. Import your attendees or open a registration page so your advocates can sign up to attend your fly-in.
👋 Need More Help?
Reach out to us at help@advocacyai.com and we'll get you back on track!