Category: COMMERCIAL GROWTH
Sponsorship Can Build Trust. But Is It Building Growth?
Insurance brokers invest in local communities, sport, events and industry relationships.
Those sponsorships can strengthen reputation, awareness and trust.
But the commercial value rarely comes from the sponsorship rights alone.
The real opportunity is what the brokerage builds around them.
Why sponsorship makes sense for insurance brokers
Insurance remains a relationship-led business.
Customers want confidence in the people and organisations they are trusting to protect their business, family or assets.
That is one reason sponsorship can be particularly valuable for brokers.
A local sports club, business event, professional association or community initiative can help reinforce:
Trust
Being visible in the communities and industries you serve.
Reputation
Demonstrating long-term commitment rather than appearing only when there is something to sell.
Relationships
Creating opportunities to engage customers, prospects and referral partners.
Local presence
Strengthening recognition in the geographic markets where the brokerage operates.
Sponsorship can create real value for a broker.
But too much of that value can remain trapped inside the sponsorship itself.
Where sponsorship value gets lost
The sponsorship agreement is signed.
The logo appears.
And then?
That is often where the gap begins.
None of this means the sponsorship was a bad investment.
It means the brokerage may only be activating part of what it has bought.
The rights create the opportunity. Activation creates the commercial value.
The sponsorship may sit with marketing, management or a local branch, while:
sales activity continues separately
CRM does not capture sponsorship contacts or engagement
customers are not systematically activated around the property
referral partners are left outside the programme
content is produced sporadically rather than planned
local branches or account teams are not given a role
commercial outcomes are difficult to trace
What changed my view of sponsorship
Earlier in my career, I worked with a telecommunications business that became one of the most active sponsors of sport, music and community initiatives across the Caribbean.
Sponsorship initially worked extremely well. It helped the business build awareness, enter markets and become part of local communities.
But over time, competitors became more active too.
Simply owning more sponsorships stopped being an advantage.
So we changed the model.
We became more selective about the properties we retained and reinvested more of the available budget into making those sponsorships work harder.
That meant connecting sponsorship to media, CRM, content, customer engagement, local activation and sales activity.
The lesson was simple: the property itself was not the strategy. The value came from the commercial system built around it.
The sponsorship is only the beginning
Over time, I developed a simple practical rule of thumb:
≈ 30%
RIGHTS
≈ 70%
ACTIVATION
The exact ratio will vary.
The point is not that every sponsorship should follow 30/70 precisely.
The principle is more important:
Do not spend so much securing the sponsorship that there is too little left to make it work.
Published research into sponsorship activation supports the broader idea that substantial activation investment is often required alongside rights fees. The appropriate ratio depends on the objective, property and market.
30/70 is a practical rule of thumb, not an industry benchmark.
Different sponsorships create different opportunities
SPORTS TEAM
Community & trust
Throughout the season
Content, customers, local activation
BUSINESS EVENT
Relationships & pipeline
Before, during & after
Meetings, CRM, follow-up
VENUE / STADIUM
Long-term awareness & salience
Always-on
Awareness, experiences, partnerships
COMMUNITY / CHARITY
Trust & reputation
Programme-led
Participation, stories, engagement
The property changes. So should the growth engine around it.
What sponsorship activation could look like for a broker
Customers
Invitations, experiences, competitions, appreciation and relationship-building.
Prospects
Relevant events, hospitality, local engagement and follow-up.
Referral partners
Accountants, solicitors, mortgage advisers or other partners brought into the activation.
Content
Stories around the team, community, customers or sector rather than logo-led posts.
The point is not to turn every sponsorship into a sales campaign.
It is to make sure a valuable commercial asset is connected to the rest of the business
CRM & sales follow-up
Capture who engaged, what happened and what the next conversation should be.
Local activation
Use branches, account teams and local networks to amplify the sponsorship where it matters.
Measure more than visibility
Not every sponsorship needs to generate immediate leads.
A community sponsorship may primarily strengthen trust and local reputation. A business event may influence pipeline. Hospitality may deepen customer or referral-partner relationships.
What matters is deciding what behaviour the sponsorship is expected to influence before activation begins.
Traditional sponsorship measurement
Reach → Impressions → Media Value
Commercial Measurement
Awareness → Engagement → Consideration → Enquiries → Referrals → Customer Value
Measurement should be designed before the sponsorship starts, not reconstructed afterwards.
Before renewing your next sponsorship, ask three questions.
Sponsorship does not necessarily need more budget.
Sometimes it needs fewer properties, clearer objectives and stronger activation around the sponsorships the brokerage already owns.
The sponsorship is not the growth strategy. It is an asset within one.
1-
What role is this sponsorship supposed to play?
Trust, awareness, customer engagement, referral relationships, pipeline or something else?
2-
Are we doing enough around it?
Are the people, content, CRM, customer activity and follow-up in place?
3-
What commercial behaviour should it influence?
More engagement, stronger relationships, enquiries, referrals, retention or customer value?
Could your existing commercial activity be working harder?
Sponsorship is only one part of the commercial growth system.
A Venturo Growth Snapshot provides an outside-in view of where opportunities may exist across lead generation, customer growth, sales, CRM and commercial visibility.