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Thursday, March 4, 2021

Facebook Lookalike Audiences: What Marketers Need to Know

If you’ve ever been in charge of running ads for a business, I’ll bet you’ve wondered how to get cold audiences to interact with your ads. It’s the age-old problem of online advertising.

With Facebook ads, one of the best ways to target a cold audience that is likely to interact with you is to use lookalike audiences.

Don’t worry if you’ve heard of this concept, but have been slightly worried about getting started with the process. I know I thought the process would be more complex when I was working at an agency. Lucky for us, it’s actually really simple.

Below, let’s learn everything you need to know to get started with Facebook lookalike audiences.

So, how does it work?

How does Facebook create lookalike audiences?

Well, Facebook will look at your custom list of people (called a source audience), then match emails with those Facebook profiles, and then find users who have similar interests or are in a similar demographic.

With a lookalike audience, you can reach a cold audience that is highly targeted (reaching only the top 1% of people who most closely match your custom list) and more likely to convert than other audiences because they’re similar to your warm audiences.

When you create a lookalike audience, you’ll be able to maximize your reach and improve your cost per acquisition for new leads since you’re targeting warmer audiences.

Additionally, when Facebook is creating the lookalike audiences that your ad will show up for, it makes sure to exclude anyone from the source audience (the list you uploaded).

You can use several lookalike audiences even for one ad set, that way your ad can show up to people who are similar to your web visitors as well as your email list.

Now, how do you create a lookalike audience?

1. Go to Audiences.

The first step is to log on to Facebook Ads. Then, click the nine dots in the left-hand corner, and click “Audiences.”

2. Select Create Audience and choose Lookalike Audience.

Now, click the blue button that says “Create Audience” and then scroll down to “Lookalike Audience.”

3. Upload your source audience.

This step is where the magic happens. Now it’s time to upload your custom audience source. You can upload a .txt or .csv file or choose a Facebook source. This audience source can be from:

An email list
Website visitors (based on a Facebook pixel you’ll need to install on your site)
App activity
A customer list
Facebook sources (people who have watched your videos, filled out a form, Instagram followers)

To determine which source you want to use, think about your goals. Are you trying to get new email subscribers? Then maybe your email list would be best. If you’re trying to increase sales, maybe you should use your website visitors list.

Either way, it’s important to think about the goal of your ad before you choose your source audience.

4. Choose the country you’d like to find a similar set of people in.

Once you’ve uploaded a list, choose the country that you want to target. This doesn’t mean that people in your source audience need to be from this country. This is just the country or countries you want to target for the ad.

5. Decide your audience size.

Now, you can select your audience size. For example, if you choose 1%, then the people you target will include people who are most similar to your lookalike source. If you increase the percentage, then you increase your audience size. The bigger the audience size, the less precise the matching details are.

6. Click Create Audience.

Last but not least, click the blue button that says “Create Audience.” It might take up to a day for the audience to be created. But once your lookalike audience is being used, it will refresh every 3-7 days as long as you have ads that are currently targeting it.

Once you’re done creating your lookalike audience, you can set even more parameters by going into the Power Editor tool and choosing a specific age, gender, location, etc.

Before I set you off to the races, though, let’s first discuss some of the requirements of creating a Facebook lookalike audience.

Facebook Lookalike Audience Minimum Size

To create a Facebook lookalike audience, your source audience needs to include at least 100 people from a single country. Additionally, it’s recommended that your source audience contain 1,000 to 50,000 people. You can also create up to 500 lookalike audiences from a single source audience.

If you’re looking to create a Facebook ad, using lookalike audiences is one of the best ways to target cold audiences. These audiences will be more likely to engage with your ad based on their similarities to your other audiences.

If you’re a HubSpot customer, you can use HubSpot’s ads tool to manage your digital ads, including ones run on Facebook.

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Facebook Lookalike Audiences: What Marketers Need to Know was originally posted by Local Sign Company Irvine, Ca. https://goo.gl/4NmUQV https://goo.gl/bQ1zHR http://www.pearltrees.com/anaheimsigns

2 new measures aim to take diesel trucks off Southern California roads

Two sweeping air pollution regulations aimed at removing smog-causing diesel trucks from Southern California roadways and warehouses are being released for public review within the next 30 days.

The measures are part of an executive order issued by Gov. Gavin Newsom to have only zero-emission trucks and buses — most would be electric — on the roads by 2045. The changeover would impact 2 million medium- and heavy-duty trucks operating in California, including about 500,000 in Southern California.

A local Southern California measure would require trucks serving 3,000 warehouses to be electrified.

Trucks moving packages and all kinds of goods account for 47% of all the NOx, shorthand for oxides of nitrogen, in the South Coast Air Basin which encompasses Orange County and the non-desert portions of Los Angeles, San Bernardino and Riverside counties. NOx is a component of ground-level ozone, a gas that damages the lungs. The basin has the highest levels of ozone as part of smog in the nation.

Air pollution studies show ozone, produced when pollutants “cook” in sunlight, and fine particulates, a direct component of diesel soot, can trigger asthma attacks, emergency room visits, heart attacks and cause lung damage. Fine particulates, or PM 2.5, pass more easily into the lungs and even the brain.

Transportation sources account for 40% of the greenhouse gases in California, according to state environmental agencies. These gases, such as carbon dioxide, contribute to global climate change, which is melting polar ice caps and causing extreme weather events, according to climate scientists.

The Inland Empire has seen numerous large-scale warehouses, logistics and fulfillment centers pop up in the past 10 years, which are served by diesel semitrucks and delivery vans for companies such as Wal-Mart and Amazon. The two proposed regulations would reduce local air pollution around warehouses often located in low-income communities, as well as in and out of the twin ports of Los Angeles and Long Beach, according to Andrea Vidaurre, senior policy analyst for the People’s Collective For Environmental Justice (PCFEJ) in the Inland Empire.

“What used to be freeways, railways and ports are now pollution sources formed into an inland port,” Vidaurre said. “Forty percent of the nation’s stuff goes through those ports and come to warehouses in the communities of Bloomington, Muscoy, Highland, Moreno Valley, Perris and other areas in Riverside and San Bernardino counties.”

The two regulations are different in scope and approach but both target diesel trucks:

• An informational webinar will be presented at 1 p.m. Thursday, March 4, by the California Air Resources Board on its proposed Advanced Clean Fleets (ACF) program. The program sets targets for buying electric vehicles for public fleet owners such as cities and counties; private fleet companies such as those running airport shuttles, as well as owners of drayage trucks, defined as on-road, diesel-fueled, heavy-duty trucks that transport containers to and from ports and railyards.

The CARB program calls for phasing in zero-emission trucks as follows: For public fleets: 50% by the 2024-2026 model years; 100% starting with 2027 model year trucks. All drayage trucks must be zero-emission by 2035, while diesel trucks on the road can operate until reaching 800,000 miles or 18 years of age. Private fleet owners are to phase in zero-emission vehicle (ZEV) truck models starting at 10% in 2025 and up to 100% by 2035 for most truck varieties. Sleeper-cab trucks, the largest, have until 2042 to reach 100%.

• The South Coast Air Quality Management District is scheduled to hold a hearing April 2 on its Warehouse Indirect Source Rule (ISR). About 3,000 existing warehouses over 100,000 square feet in size located within the air district would be required to reduce truck tailpipe emissions that serve their facilities by replacing them with electric or fuel-cell trucks and installing electric charging infrastructure. Otherwise, each warehouse owner must pay a “mitigation fee,” estimated at $0.90 per square foot to the AQMD, to be used by others to buy clean-fuel trucks and equipment.

While environmental groups, from the PCFEJ to the Sierra Club and the American Lung Association support both rules, some industry groups have deep concerns.

The Southern California chapter of the National Association of Office and Industrial Parks opposes the AQMD warehouse measure, saying it will cost Southern California warehouses $1 billion a year and will result in higher consumer prices on everything from medicine to groceries to electronics.

“We share the goal to reduce air emissions but it needs to be done in a way that makes sense,” said Timothy Jemal, CEO of NAIOP SoCal. Jemal said the association’s 1,300 members will continue to oppose the measure.

There are too few electric trucks are on the market to meet the demand, according to Jemal, so most warehouse owners will pay the fee, which he said is illegal.

“We believe this is a tax that requires two-thirds voter approval in order to be adopted,” he added.

FILE -The Los Angeles based Chanje company CEO Bryan Hansel unveils a line of electric trucks at warehouse/hangar at Fullerton Municipal Airport October 18, 2017. The delivery vehicles were designed with permanent magnet motors from scratch, not based on any other truck. (File photo by Leo Jarzomb, SGV Tribune/ SCNG)

In an earlier webinar on the CARB’s clean truck fleets measure, Brandon Rose, a representative of the board, said there are 93 ZEV truck models on the market today and that will increase to 109 by 2023.

“There really is a wide variety of zero-emission trucks and buses available,” Rose said Tuesday, March 2. “You are starting to see this become more mainstream.”

Costs are going down, he added.

Investor-owned utilities have received approvals by the California Public Utilities Commission for $700 million to install electric-charging infrastructure through 2023, enough to support 18,000 trucks, buses and off-road vehicles, he said.

In the Tuesday meeting, some operators of public fleets asked if exemptions were allowed if the costs were too high. Though the rule is still in the early stage and could be changed, Tony Brasil of CARB answered: “We wouldn’t use cost as a direct criteria.”

However, CARB said it would work with cities and counties to avoid having to buy two electric trucks to replace one.

As far as large trucks that take containers from the ports to warehouses and rail yards, the proposed fleet rule from CARB is an extension of a similar truck regulation that sunsets in 2022. These trucks would be required to be 100% emission-free by 2035 in order to operate at a rail yard or sea port, according to the proposal.

“The concept will focus on minimizing negative health impacts these drayage trucks have on nearby communities,” such as those near a rail yard or the ports of LA and Long Beach, said Jessica Johnston of CARB.

“What we need is the shift from delay and confusion (regarding state and local clean-truck mandates) to investing in the infrastructure we need to fuel these zero-emission vehicles,” said William Barrett, American Lung Association’s California Clean Air Advocacy Director.

“We want to see CARB follow through with the governor’s vision — that all trucks operating in California must be zero emission. That would require a strong fleet rule,” Barrett said.

CARB plans additional online workshops for its clean fleet rule in April and June. No date has been set for adoption.

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2 new measures aim to take diesel trucks off Southern California roads was originally posted by Local Sign Company Irvine, Ca. https://goo.gl/4NmUQV https://goo.gl/bQ1zHR http://www.pearltrees.com/anaheimsigns

The Ultimate Guide to Branding in 2021

Products are never just products, right?

Coca-Cola is more than a soda. Starbucks is more than a coffee. Ray-Ban is more than a pair of sunglasses. Glossier is more than a tube of concealer.

Interacting with these products provide experiences, and we buy them with that experience in mind. Better yet, the companies that create and market them know exactly the experience they want you to have when you make (or consider) a purchase. That’s why they create a brand.

From the language in their Instagram caption to the color palette on their latest billboard to the material used in their packaging, companies who create strong brands know that their brand needs to live everywhere. They know their names extend far beyond the label.

The result? These brands are known, loved, and chosen out of a long lineup of options.

Who doesn’t want that? I know I do. That’s why we built this guide — to equip you to create and manage a strong brand that’ll help your business be admired, remembered, and preferred.

Use the links below to jump ahead to sections of interest, and don’t forget to bookmark this guide for later.

What’s a brand?

Before I dive into the importance of branding and how to build a brand, let’s go back to basics: What is a brand?

A brand is a feature or set of features that distinguish one organization from another. A brand is typically comprised of a name, tagline, logo or symbol, design, brand voice, and more. It also refers to the overall experience a customer undergoes when interacting with a business — as a shopper, customer, social media follower, or mere passerby.

What is branding?

Branding is the process of researching, developing, and applying a distinctive feature or set of features to your organization so that consumers can begin to associate your brand with your products or services.

Branding is an iterative process and requires getting in touch with the heart of your customers and your business. It’s important for a variety of reasons — I dive into these next.

Branding can be the deciding factor for consumers when they make a purchase decision. In a 2015 global Nielsen survey, almost 60% of shoppers said they actively buy from brands they know, and 21% said they bought a product because they liked the brand.

Branding gives your business an identity beyond its product or service. It gives consumers something to relate to and connect with.

Branding makes your business memorable. It’s the face of your company and helps consumers distinguish your business across every medium (which I discuss later).

Branding supports your marketing and advertising efforts. It helps your promotion pack that extra punch with added recognition and impact.

Branding brings your employees pride. When you brand your company, you’re not only giving your business identity, you’re also creating a reputable, highly-regarded workplace. Strong branding brings in strong employees.

Branding Terms to Know

Here are some other brand-related buzzwords you should know. They further demonstrate the importance and value of branding your business.

Brand awareness

Brand awareness refers to how familiar the general public and your target audience is with your brand. High brand awareness leads to brands being referred to as “trending,” “buzzworthy, or “popular.” Brand awareness is important because consumers can’t consider purchasing from your brand if they’re not aware of it.

👉🏼 Strong branding makes your business known.

Brand extension

Brand extensions are when companies “extend” their brand to develop new products in new industries and markets. Consider Honda lawn mowers or Martha Stewart bedding. Brand extensions allow companies (or individuals) to leverage brand awareness and equity to create more revenue streams and diversify product lines.

👉🏼 Strong branding brings in more money.

Brand identity

Brand identity is the personality of your business and the promise you make to your customers. It’s what you want your customers to walk away with after they interact with your brand. Your brand identity is typically comprised of your values, how you communicate your product or service, and what you want people to feel when they interact with it.

👉🏼 Strong branding gives your business more than a name.

Brand management

Brand management refers to the process of creating and maintaining your brand. It includes managing the tangible elements of your brand (style guide, packaging, color palette) and the intangible elements (how it’s perceived by your target audience and customer base). Your brand is a living, breathing asset, and it should be managed as such.

👉🏼 Strong branding requires consistent upkeep.

Brand recognition

Brand recognition is how well a consumer (ideally in your target audience) can recognize and identify your brand without seeing your business name — through your logo, tagline, jingle, packaging, or advertising. This concept goes hand-in-hand with brand recall, which is the ability to think of a brand without any visual or auditory identifiers.

👉🏼 Strong branding keeps your business top-of-mind.

Real-life brand example: Want to test your brand knowledge? Take this Logo Quiz by Business Insider to see how well you know your corporate brands. This is brand recognition at work.

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Brand trust

Brand trust refers to how strongly customers and consumers believe in your brand. Do you deliver on your marketing promises? Do your salespeople and customer service go above and beyond? These things can create trust among your customers, which is important in a world where a mere 25% of people feel confident in large businesses.

👉🏼 Strong branding builds trust with your customers.

Brand valuation

Brand valuation is the commercial valuation of your brand derived from consumer perception, recognition, and trust. This concept goes hand-in-hand with brand equity. A powerful brand can make your business invaluable to investors, shareholders, and potential buyers.

👉🏼 Strong branding increases your business’s value.

Want to build an effective, measurable brand? Download our free guide on How to Build a Brand in 2019.

How to Create a Brand

Determine your target audience
Establish your mission statement
Define your values, features, and benefits
Create your visual assets
Find your brand voice
Put your branding to work

Here’s how you can create a brand — or begin the process of rebranding your current one.

There’s a lot that goes into a brand, and there’s a lot to consider when building a strong one. So, grab a notebook and jot down ideas as you move through this section. Recognize that branding is an iterative process, so you might be repeating some of these steps as you brainstorm and build your brand.

1. Determine your target audience

Branding leads to awareness, recognition, trust, and revenue. We’ve talked about that. But let’s take a step back and understand where those stem from: consumers. And not just any consumers — your target audience and customers.

If your brand doesn’t resonate with your audience, it won’t lead to that awareness, recognition, trust, and revenue. That’s where target market research comes in.

Before pressing pen to paper (or cursor to digital document), you must understand to whom your branding will be speaking. Who does your product serve? Who is your ideal customer? Why did you create your business in the first place?

What you learn about your target market and buyer personas will influence your branding decisions down the line, so make this step your first priority.

Download our free Persona Templates to easily organize your target audience research and strengthen your marketing .

2. Establish your mission statement

Let’s return to a question I asked in the previous step: Why did you create your business? Answering this will help you build your mission statement, which defines your purpose and passion as an organization.

Before you can craft a brand that your audience recognizes, values, and trusts, you must be able to communicate the purpose that your business provides. Then, every part of your brand (logo, tagline, imagery, voice, and personality) can reflect that mission and vision.

Your mission statement is a building block of your brand manifesto, which encompasses why your organization exists and why people should care about your brand.

Download our free guide to Defining Inspiring Mission and Vision Statements and learn the ins-and-outs of two of the most valuable strategic planning elements for businesses.

3. Define your unique values, qualities, and benefits

There are probably lots of businesses in your industry and niche. It’s easy to focus on your competition (and there’s a time and place for competitive analysis), but, for now, let’s focus on you.

What’s one thing that your business has that no one else can mimic (er, legally)? Your brand.

Because of that, you must ensure that your brand is comprised of and inspired by elements that are solely yours: the values, benefits, and qualities that make your company unique.

Take a moment to jot down a list of what sets your business apart from others. I’m not talking about product features (like appearance, components, or capabilities); I’m referring to how your products or services improve lives and contribute to success.

Real-life brand example: Alani Nutrition

You’ve probably never heard of Alani Nu; they’re a nutrition company based in my hometown of Louisville, Kentucky. I order their vitamins because 1) they’re proven to work, and 2) I trust and respect the brand (and it’s gorgeous!). On their website, they’ve clearly and simply outlined their unique values and benefits as part of their overall brand. Highlighting these makes it easy for customers like me to trust their products and choose them over competitors.

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4. Create your visual assets

At this point, you should understand your target audience, your mission statement, and the unique qualities that make up your business.

If you can say with confidence that you’ve mastered these steps, it’s time to move onto one of the more exciting parts of branding — the visual design. We’re talking about your logo, color palette, typography (fonts), iconography, and other visual components.

As you create these elements, build a set of brand guidelines (or a brand style guide) to govern the composition and use of your visual assets. This will ensure that whoever uses your new branding does so accurately and consistently. Check out HubSpot’s brand guidelines for reference.

branding-1-1

Note: Design can be just as intimidating as it is exciting. Consider hiring a professional with logo and identity design experience or starting with a few helpful design templates.

Take your brand to the next level with this free e-book on creating a brand style guide. Download templates, too!

5. Find your brand voice

Next, consider the auditory component of your brand. What would your brand sound like if you had a conversation with it, or if it texted you?

How you communicate with your target market is also considered part of your branding. You want to define a brand voice that connects and resonates with your audience — otherwise, they probably won’t pay attention. Because of that, don’t hesitate to return to step one to get familiar with to whom you’re speaking.

From your advertising campaigns and social media captions to your blog posts and brand story, ensure your tone is consistent throughout all of your written content. Give your audience a chance to get familiar with your brand and learn to recognize the sound of your voice. Better yet, master a fun, entertaining voice, and your customers will look forward to your social media and email updates.

Real-life brand example: MailChimp

MailChimp is a great example of a brand that speaks with a clear, consistent tone. When I used their free plan for my small business, I always chuckled when receiving their emails and working in their interface. From its web copy to its email blasts and social media captions, MailChimp has established a brand voice and personality that is personable, fun, and accessible — it can be hard to explain the technical parts of a software product (like A/B testing), but MailChimp has mastered that, too.

branding-4 Source

6. Put your branding to work

Your brand only works if you do. Once you finish designing and creating your new brand (or rebrand) integrate it throughout every inch of your business. Pay extra attention to ensure it’s displayed anywhere your business touches customers. Here are a handful of tips for applying your brand across your organization.

Website

Splash your logo, color palette, and typography across your website. Don’t use anything but your predefined assets in your brand guidelines. Your website is a major part of your company identity — if it doesn’t reflect your brand, it will only provide a jarring customer experience. Also, be sure that all web copy, calls-to-action, and product descriptions reflect your brand voice.

Social media

All profile photos, cover art, and branded imagery should reflect your brand. Consider putting your logo as your profile photo — this will make it easier for customers to recognize your business. As with your website, be sure all profile information, posts, and captions reflect your brand voice.

Packaging

If you have a physical products business, your product is probably the most tangible way that customers interact with your brand. For that reason, your packaging should reflect your new branding — in its design, colors, size, and feel.

Real-life brand example: Chobani

I love Chobani yogurt (confession: I’m eating it right now). Their new branding immediately tells me that they produce authentic, healthy Greek yogurt. That’s one of the main reasons I buy Chobani. Recently, I realized that their yogurt packages are made with a very earthy, textured material — an intentional decision that supports the overall experience they’ve paired with purchasing and eating the Chobani brand.

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Advertising

Because advertisements (digital and print) are often used to establish brand awareness and introduce consumers to your brand, it’s critical that they reflect your branding. In fact, your branding should make the ad creation process easier — with your brand style guide, you already know how your ads should appear and what type of copy to write.

Sales and customer service

A brand is only as powerful as the people behind it, and if your people aren’t putting your brand to work, it won’t work for you. Moreover, your brand applies to more than your marketing. Inform your sales and customer service folks of your brand guidelines and tell them to use it, especially when they engage directly with customers. Whether they are sharing a branded product demo or answering customer support inquiries, encourage them to use your logo, tagline, imagery, and brand voice.

Download our Essential Guide to Branding Your Company to learn everything you need to go from same-old business to must-have brand.

Branding Tips for Small Business

Treat your brand as a person
Prioritize consistency
Follow a brand strategy
Don’t let inspiration turn into imitation
Use branding to hire

Treat your brand as a person

To best wrap your head around the branding process, think of your brand as a person. Your brand should have an identity (who it is), personality (how it behaves), and experience (how it’s remembered).

Ask yourself these questions about your brand:

How would your brand introduce itself? If it had to describe its appearance, how would it do so?
How would your brand talk about your products or services? Would it be serious and professional, or would it be humorous and edgy?
What would someone say about your brand after “meeting” it for the first time? What are a few sentences they’d use to describe it?

The purpose of branding is to create relationships with your customers. The easiest way to do this is to treat your brand as a person and understand that you want your customers to do the same.

Real-life brand example: Whiskey Riff

Whiskey Riff is another brand you’re probably not familiar with. It’s a two-man media company based here in Chicago that’s dubbed themselves “the most entertaining country music site ever”. I’m a fan because I love country music, enjoy their written and podcast content, and proudly wear some of their awesome apparel.

If Whiskey Riff was a person, here’s how I’d think it would answer the questions above:

“Hey, I’m Whiskey Riff. I love country music and, you guessed it, Whiskey. My logo was inspired by the Y in the circle on the Chicago Theater marquee, and I’m adorned with horizontal red stripes and stars — which represent the American and Chicago flags.”
“I publish in-your-face content about what’s going on in country music today. If you don’t like it, don’t read it. My podcast featured my founders interviewing country music artists and telling hilarious stories. Check out my apparel line; my t-shirts, tanks, hats, and accessories can be seen at country music festivals (and on stages) nationwide.”
“Whiskey Riff is like that first shot of Jack Daniels — that much-needed, refreshing drink after a long day. Its a break from that cookie-cutter way of life, and you immediately appreciate — and trust — its candidness. There’s absolutely nothing like it in the industry.”

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Prioritize consistency

Inconsistency is the number one branding mistake that companies make. Inconsistency undermines your brand and confuses your customers. Recognizable, valuable brands prioritize consistency — and they reap the benefits. When your brand is a unified presence across mediums and platforms, customers can easily get familiar with, recognize, and come to prefer your brand over time. Brand guidelines can help with this initiative.

Build and follow a brand strategy

A brand strategy is more than your brand guidelines; it’s a plan with specific, long-term goals that can be achieved as your brand evolves. These goals typically revolve around your brand’s purpose, emotion, flexibility, competitive awareness, and employee involvement.

Remember how I said that branding is a continuous process? There’s a lot that goes into it. A brand strategy can help you turn that process into a well-oiled practice that keeps your brand moving toward success and recognition.

Don’t let inspiration turn into imitation

Competitive analysis is important. Not only does it educate you on where your competition stands and how they are excelling, but it can also give you ideas on how you can improve or further set apart your brand.

However, be conscious to not fall into an imitation trap. Keep your competitive research limited and focus on what your organization brings to the table. Just because a competitor (or two) has branded their company in a certain way doesn’t mean that you have to follow suit. New, unique, provocative brands are memorable brands.

Use branding to hire

Strong branding makes your employees proud. I know I’m proud to be associated with HubSpot, much less work there. Leverage your branding to attract talented people. If hiring is a strong initiative for your organization, dedicate some of your resources to employer branding. Employer branding is how you market your company to job seekers and current employees. If you’re publically proud of your organization, others will be, too.

Ready, Set, Brand

Branding is your organization’s name, logo, color palette, voice, and imagery. It’s also more. It’s that intangible feeling your customers have when they interact with your brand. You know … that experience we talked about in the beginning.

That’s how powerhouse brands deviate from all the others. The tangible components contribute to this — a gorgeous logo, a clever tagline, an authentic manifesto, and a clear brand voice — but truly strong brands thrive when they focus on the big picture of their brand. Get to the heart and soul of your target audience and your organization, and a successful brand will follow.

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The Ultimate Guide to Branding in 2021 was originally posted by Local Sign Company Irvine, Ca. https://goo.gl/4NmUQV https://goo.gl/bQ1zHR http://www.pearltrees.com/anaheimsigns

Clippers have work to do in Washington, even short-handed

The Clippers likely won’t be at full strength on Thursday when they take the court for the final time before the All-Star break, desperate for a victory in what Paul George described as a “must-win” game against the Washington Wizards.

He arrived at that assessment Tuesday night after the undermanned Clippers stalled down the stretch for the second consecutive game, losing this time to Boston, 117-112. The defeat was L.A.’s second consecutive loss and fifth in eight games.

They were without All-Star Kawhi Leonard against the Celtics because he was a late scratch after back spasms flared up before tip-off. They also missed the contributions of Marcus Morris Sr. once he left the game with a concussion after scoring 10 points in 15 minutes.

Going into Thursday’s first-half finale, Leonard is considered questionable and Morris is doubtful.

Their understudy, Patrick Patterson, won’t be available against Washington because he’s away tending to a personal matter.

With or without them, the Clippers hope to avoid their first three-game losing streak of the season with a win against the Wizards, who are 13-20 overall but 7-3 in their past 10 outings.

And they’ll brace for another opportunity to address the late-game issues that continue to crop up.

For the season, the Clippers’ 114.8 points-per-game average is sixth-best in the NBA, as is their 48.5% field goal percentage. Their 41.8% shooting percentage from 3-point range is tops in the league.

But those impressive tallies fall off in the fourth quarter: The Clippers – who woke up Wednesday 24-13 and in fourth place in the Western Conference standings – shoot 46.6% from the floor in the final period, 39.6% from deep and average a 16th-best 27.2 points.

They haven’t had much practice playing “clutch” minutes this season, having tallied only 41 minutes that qualify (which is to say they occurred within the last five minutes of a game in which the point differential was five or fewer).

That’s fewer than 27 other teams, and perhaps too small a sample size to say anything definitively? Or perhaps it’s a good thing they haven’t been put in the position more often? Because the Clippers haven’t played well in those measurable crunch-time moments.

L.A. has shot an uncharacteristic 35.3% (24 for 68) from the floor in those situations, and only 34.2% (13 for 38) from 3-point range.

In this most recent two-game skid, the Clippers have struggled mightily to score in eight “clutch” minutes, going 3 for 15 from the field and 2 for 11 from deep.

And George? The now-seven-time All-Star to whom the Clippers will turn down the stretch of such tight affairs has lately hit a wall. He has hit only one of nine shots in seven clutch minutes.

Those are jarring number especially when considering how well he started both games, shooting a combined 14 for 22 (63.6%) in first-half action.

After George and Leonard’s combined 0-for-9 cold snap cost the Clippers in Milwaukee on Sunday, they both talked about needing to pick up the tempo and be more secure in their attack.

On Tuesday, George sang a similar tune, blowing the whistle on himself.

“We just gotta do a better job of pushing the pace, pushing the tempo and just getting into our sets,” he said, via Zoom video conference. “Tonight, we didn’t do that down the stretch once again, and that’s on me. A lot of times, I’m one of the primary ball handlers, I gotta get the ball up, let’s get into some action, and let’s play from there.”

Reggie Jackson – who contributed a season-high 25 points in his spot start for Leonard on Tuesday – said he trusts the Clippers’ stars will come through as they play more clutch minutes and get more comfortable with what’s needed from them in those moments.

“It’ll be something that we continue to get better at,” Jackson said. “We feel like we got the ball in the right guys’ hands, they’re gonna do their best job night in and night out to make the right decisions for us.

“We trust them all the time, and a lot of times they find a way to pull it out for us, to make big tough shots, so that’s the player that we’re accustomed to having. They’ve been doing it for a long time in their career, so we trust their decision, every time. Put the ball in Kawhi, or Paul and Lou (Williams’) hands, we trust them to make the decisions down the stretch for us.”

CLIPPERS (24-13) at WIZARDS (13-20)

When: Thursday, 4 p.m.

Where: Capital One Arena, Washington, D.C.

TV: Fox Sports Prime Ticket

Paul George last two 4th quarters:

7 PTS
3-19 FG
1-11 3P

He’s shooting 25% in the clutch this season. pic.twitter.com/oO0O4CRJ9Y

— StatMuse (@statmuse) March 3, 2021

Tough one. pic.twitter.com/vDfd48tYFy

— LA Clippers (@LAClippers) March 3, 2021

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Wednesday, March 3, 2021

German intel agency looking into far-right party AfD

By David Rising | Associated Press

BERLIN — Germany’s domestic intelligence agency has put the Alternative for Germany party under observation due to suspicions of extreme-right sympathies, German media reported Wednesday, a move against the biggest opposition party in parliament that comes only six months before a national election.

Alternative for Germany, or AfD, has been fighting in court against such measures, arguing that the publicity surrounding such a move so close to Sept. 26 election would damage the party’s electoral chances.

Once the news was reported by the German news agency dpa, Der Spiegel, ARD public television and other media, AfD co-chairman Tino Chrupalla accused the Federal Office for the Protection of the Constitution, known by the initials BfV, of intentionally leaking the information in an attempt to influence public opinion about the party.

The BfV’s behavior is “scandalous,” he told dpa.

Interior Ministry spokesman Steve Alter would neither confirm nor deny the reports and would not comment due to “ongoing proceedings.” The BfV also refused comment.

AfD parliamentary leaders Alexander Gauland and Alice Weidel said being put under observation was “completely unjustified and has no basis.”

“It is no coincidence that this information was was leaked to the press in the year of a federal election and only a few days before two important state elections,” they wrote in a statement. “A targeted attempt is being made here to reduce the AfD’s chances with the help of the domestic intelligence agency.”

AfD entered Germany’s national parliament as the third-biggest party in the 2017 election, benefiting from a backlash at the time against the influx of more than 1 million asylum-seekers. It is currently the largest of four opposition parties in the national parliament and has lawmakers in all 16 state assemblies.

The party has moved steadily to the right since it was founded in 2013 for critics of the shared euro currency. Several senior figures have quit in recent years, warning that the party was being taken over by far-right extremists.

Recent polls have shown support for AfD, which won 12.6% of the vote in 2017, at between 9% and 11%.

The new move to put the party as a whole under observation came more than two years after the BfV announced it was examining public comments by party members and its links to extremist groups more closely.

In January 2019, the agency put the the youth wing of the party, as well as a party faction linked to a prominent leader in eastern Germany, Bjoern Hoecke, under covert surveillance over extremism allegations.

At the time, the BfV cited the youth organization’s stated goal of creating an ethnically pure country and efforts by Hoecke’s faction — known as “The Wing” — to downplay Germany’s Nazi past.

The Wing — now officially dissolved, although its representatives remain in the party — also suggested it might pursue “revolutionary” means to achieve its political aims, warranting scrutiny from the BfV.

Germany’s Central Council of Jews applauded the move to classify the entire party as a “suspected case” of extremism and put it under surveillance.

The moves “confirm the danger posed by the AfD,” said its president, Josef Schuster. “It tried to create a respectable façade, but that couldn’t hide its radicalism.”

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Rain arrives in Southern California, but how long will it last?

A single-day storm was expected to drop about a quarter-inch of rain in Southern California on Wednesday, March 3, with a few inches of snow in the local mountains, meteorologists said.

The storm was expected to continue through the early evening in the Inland Empire, Los Angeles and Orange counties, meteorologists with the National Weather Service said. Some coastal areas, including Long Beach, had some lightning flashes and booming thunder in the morning.

Huntington Beach and Seal Beach temporarily closed their beaches due to potential lightning strikes.

“When thunder roars go indoors,” said Dan Gregoria, an NWS meteorologist. “With any thunderstorm, locally there’s heavy rainfall. We’re not expecting any widespread flooding, but potentially some heavier amounts.”

Hewey Nguyen shoots baskets at the Great Park in Irvine, CA on Wednesday, March 3, 2021 as storm clouds move in. Much of Orange County was expected to get rain. (Photo by Paul Bersebach, Orange County Register/SCNG)
Reese Ogura, 2, from Rancho Cucamonga, runs in her cardboard car with her mother Brianna at Central Park in Rancho Cucamonga as a storm approaches the area on Wednesday morning Mar. 3, 2021. Ogura was part of a group that is home schooled and were doing a project on transportation. (Photo by Will Lester, Inland Valley Daily Bulletin/SCNG)

Expand

Mountain areas in Riverside and San Bernardino counties could see 1 to 3 inches of snow at 5,000 feet elevation, with up to 6 inches at some peaks. The eastern San Gabriel Mountains could get up to 3 inches of snow.

After an extremely dry February, Wednesday’s quick-hitting storm won’t do much for this year’s rainfall levels. But, at least “it’s something,” Gregoria said.

For example at John Wayne Airport, this water year has only seen 3.23 inches of rain, which is about 7 inches below average, according to Gregoria.

Downtown Los Angeles was at 4.39 inches of rain so far, compared to 11 inches which is normal for this time of year, said Mike Wofford, another National Weather Service meteorologist.

While the short-lived storm was dropping on Southern California Wednesday, forecasts for Thursday and into the weekend show sun and warmer temperatures on the way.

Temperatures in the mid-60s to low 70s are forecast for Thursday and some areas could reach the high 70s come Saturday.

However, Wofford said that March and April in the past have brought some decent rainfall, including potential for more rain next week.

“I don’t think any of them are super heavy,” Wofford said of next week’s potential storms. “But better than what we have now. There’s some hope that we’ll start improving our numbers a little bit.”

The storm was also expected to bring decent snow to Northern California, which Wofford said at least will help with the state’s water supply.

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How to Manage Your Entire Marketing Budget [Free Budget Planner Templates]

Let's say your company decided to invest in a website redesign to improve lead generation, and you're responsible for managing the project.

Naturally, one of the first questions you ask is, "How much is this website redesign going to cost?"

The answer, of course, is "it depends." Are you simply switching to a new template and adding some new CTAs, or are you migrating your entire website to a new platform?

If only there were a way to organize your answers to all of these questions — a place where you could enter in estimated costs for all of your line items, and then compare your projected marketing budget to what you actually end up spending.Good news: Marketing budget templates can help.

Included in our eight marketing budget templates bundle is a template to manage your website redesign ... as well as templates for both Excel and Google Sheets to help you track your content budget, paid advertising budget, event budget, and more.

Additionally, in this guide, we discuss how to manage your entire marketing budget from start to finish.

Click here to download 8 free marketing budget templates.

Marketing Budget for Small Business

Marketing budgets are especially important for small businesses. Small business owners may lack the experience drawing up budgets; moreover, it's critical that these companies keep costs as low and lean as possible as they scale.

Ironically, you need marketing to scale. Without it, it's hard to sell your products and services. In addition to the budgeting templates provided below, check out some of our free offers and courses to mitigate your company's marketing costs.

Yet marketing budgets can be difficult to establish for companies of all sizes. How much should a company spend on marketing?

Well, digital media makes up more than half of both U.S. and global advertising spend. This includes initiatives that cater to audiences on desktop computers, search engines, video streaming platforms, social media, and mobile devices.

Given the success marketers have seen in it, you might consider planning to spend at least half of your marketing budget on some of these digital channels.

Let's talk about other ways to allocate your marketing budget.

Marketing Costs

As you build a budget, here are a few items you'll want to keep in mind when planning your marketing budget allocation:

Software: When it comes to digital and even print media, you may need software to create your marketing campaigns, or handle your daily processes.
Freelancers: If you have a temporary campaign or want to test out a new marketing strategy, you might want to hire a short term freelancer before bringing on a full-timer.
New personnel: When you do hire full-time employees, you'll want to budget costs including their computer, technology, benefits, and onboarding-related needs.
Advertising: Budget how much money you'll spend on paid opportunities such as physical ads, native ads, sponsored content, search engine ads, and social media promotions.
Content creation: When you create content such as videos, photos, or even blog posts, you'll need to put paid time into it. Budget how much money will go into creating this content so you can adjust accordingly based on its return on investment.

Spreadsheet knowledge alone won't help you understand how you'll spend your marketing money this year. Creating a sound marketing budget starts with knowing what purpose this budget will serve and which marketing teams it will represent.

1. Know your buyer's journey.

Your buyer's journey is the steps your audience takes as they 'journey' from prospect to paying customer. Knowing your buyer's journey allows you to understand how your audience interacts with your marketing — and where to set your goals and budget to better reach your customers.

Ask yourself these questions as you define your buyer's journey:

How do your leads and customers typically discover your products?
What do they need to know before they make a purchase?
How many site visits do you see per month?
How many leads are you generating per month, and how many of these convert to paying customers?
What is the cost of generating new leads and then converting them to customers?
What's the typical value/revenue of each lead?

This process should point out what marketing tactics are (and aren't working), where you should alter your marketing goals, and where you can focus your marketing budget.

2. Align your budget with your marketing goals.

What you spend and where you spend it will depend on what you're trying to accomplish.

So, when starting to create your marketing budget, make sure you're only spending money on the things required by your current marketing goals — goals set based on your audience and their journey from prospect to customer. These could include:

Display ads to promote a new product you're launching this year.
Sponsored social media posts to generate followers on your new Facebook page.
Paid search engine ads to drive traffic (and purchases) to a specific product page.
Contract bloggers to get more organic search traffic to your company's website.

Former Demand Generation Marketer at HubSpot and current Senior Product Marketer at Atlassian, Jessica Webb, says this about how your costs can change when focusing on lead generation vs. lead conversion: "The majority of the money you spend on paid efforts is usually calculated based on volume of clicks or impressions. Because of this, you'll often want to put more budget toward campaigns with higher-volume offers and audiences."

"For example, a tweet or Facebook ad promoting a lead generation offer that leans more top of the funnel will likely receive more clicks than something that falls more toward the middle or bottom of the funnel," she explains.

Your paid advertising costs will also change depending on how wide of an audience you are attempting to reach.

"You can look at Twitter advertising as an example," Webb says. "You have to option to target your campaigns based on users' interests or keywords searched for. Interests are a much broader category, whereas smaller pockets of users are searching for any given keyword, therefore your interests-based audience is going to be much larger and require a larger budget."

3. Beware of hidden marketing costs.

One of the great advantages to having and maintaining a budget spreadsheet is that it helps you avoid those end-of-the-quarter or end-of-the-year freak-outs when you realize, "Whoa … what did I spend all that money on?"

In many cases, unanticipated costs can force marketers to fork over cash that they didn't plan on spending. Product marketing offers a perfect example. According HubSpot's VP of Marketing Meghan Keaney Anderson, it's easy to forget that successfully marketing your products and services requires more than just promotion.

"When people allocate budget for product marketing, they tend to think in terms of product launches and promotional activities," Anderson explains.

"That's certainly an important part of it, but another area of focus to remember is setting aside resources to conduct research and message testing long before the product ever goes to market. Having conversations with customers about the pain points your product will ultimately address is critical to shaping the messaging and having a successful launch."

4. Remember where your priorities lie.

Marketing is overflowing with add-ons and extras, upsells, and "premium" versions. One of the best ways to assess what's nice to have versus what's absolutely necessary is to (you guessed it) organize all of your expenses.

By keeping tabs on where your budget is being allocated, and cross-checking that spending with the results you're getting, it will be much easier to figure out what should keep getting budget and what should get kicked to the curb.

For example, let's look to the world of public relations. In PR, there are countless tools to which you can allocate budget, which could leave you overspending where it doesn't matter — and underspending where it does.

"Tools abound to help PR practitioners not only create and distribute great content and find and target key stakeholders, but to ultimately measure reach and effectiveness," says Nathaniel Eberle, HubSpot's former Director of PR & Brand and LogMeIn's current Director of Global Brand Management.

"The key is making sure you're laser-focused on who you're setting out to reach and influence, then ensuring that your budget supports how they'll most likely want to receive (and share) your key messages.

"As the media and digital landscape evolves at breakneck speed, continually reassessing the tools, services, and programs you're employing is a great way to determine real-time ROI of your overall spend. Today's measurement tool may be worthless to you tomorrow."

5. Spend your budget smartly.

When you open up these budget templates and check out all the various expenses detailed in them, don't fret if you can't tick every box. I'm not advocating for an "always spend more" approach to marketing.

I'm advocating for an "always spend smart" approach. The expenses listed out aren't mandatory — they're just meant to guide your thinking and to help ensure that you haven't overlooked any hidden costs.

6. Prepare to measure ROI.

When you put a certain amount of money into a certain area, you'll want to determine if your budgeting helped you or hurt you as you plan out future budgets. The best way to do this is by measuring ROI — or return on investment.

If you're the money you spend on one item results in your company making more in return, you may want to increase budget in the next year. If your money went nowhere, you should examine your budget.

8 Marketing Budget Templates You Need to Manage Your Marketing Spend

With the 8 Free Budget Planner Templates to Manage Your Marketing Spend, you'll be able to manage all of the moving pieces of your budget at a monthly and quarterly level.

Use the Excel version of the templates to keep all of your budgets in one place. When you download the zip file, you'll find a separate file for each marketing team, as well as a Master Budget Template to maintain a high-level view of your overall expenses.

Interested in sharing your marketing budget across a larger team? Try the Google Sheets version of our templates to share access with other Gmail users. For the Google Sheets templates, each team budget is found in a separate tab of the same Google Sheet.

No matter which version you choose, each budget is optimized with the same line items, tips, and graphs. Read on to learn how to use each budget template.

1. Master Marketing Budget Template

Download the Master Marketing Budget Template here.

While it's helpful to have individual budget templates for specific marketing departments and activities, it's also nice to be able to take a step back and see the bigger picture.

The Master Marketing Budget Template lets you do just that: It's the place where you can collect the totals from the other seven templates in the bundle and see all of your expenses in one place.

2. Product Marketing Budget Template

Download the Product Marketing Budget Template here.

This template will guide you step-by-step through the process of budgeting for a product launch. From determining product/market fit, to running user testing sessions, to promoting your finished product, our Product Marketing Budget Template will help ensure you don't overlook any important expenses.

3. Content Budget Template

Download the Content Budget Template here.

The budget required for creating and promoting content can vary greatly from organization to organization. For example, while some organizations keep most of their content operations in-house, others rely more heavily on freelancers and contractors. And while some use many different software products, publishing tools, and services, others take a much simpler approach.

Our Content Budget Template is designed to cover as many content-related bases as possible. So, if you see any expenses listed that don't apply to your organization, go ahead and delete them. (That's the beauty of Excel spreadsheets: You can customize them to your specific needs.)

4. Paid Advertising Budget Template

Download the Paid Advertising Budget Template here.

Paid advertising: Does it really qualify as an inbound marketing tactic/channel? That is a loaded question, my friends, and one that I don't have room to answer in-depth in this post.

What I can tell you for sure is that you can do paid advertising in an "inboundy" way — i.e. by targeting specific buyer personas and using paid advertising as a supplement to your organic efforts to help drive awareness and conversion opportunities.

Measuring the effectiveness of your paid advertising campaigns is also paramount to doing things the inbound way. Using our Paid Advertising Budget Template, you can keep tabs on your monthly (and quarterly) ad spending, and then cross-reference the amounts with your lead-generation metrics to determine your cost-per-lead.

5. Public Relations Budget Template

Download the Public Relations Budget Template here.

Public relations expenses amount to more than just paying for press releases. From reputation monitoring software, to traveling (e.g., to events and trade shows), to applying for awards, there are many PR costs that can be all too easy to overlook.

To ensure you're accounting for all of your organization's PR-related expenses, check out our Public Relations Budget Template.

6. Branding & Creative Budget Template

Download the Creative Budget Template here.

In order to produce high-quality, innovative graphics, videos, and other content, the branding and creative teams of today need more than just Photoshop ... a lot more. One of the largest — and often most overlooked — expenses is storage.

If your organization is producing a lot of video, storage is especially important. Because as it turns out, when budgeting for video storage, you shouldn't be thinking on a megabyte (MB) or even a gigabyte (GB) scale, but on a terabyte (TB) scale. FYI: 1 terabyte = 1 trillion bytes. You can keep track of all your storage costs (and other branding and creative costs) using our free template.

7. Website Redesign Budget Template

Download the Website Redesign Budget Template here.

Budgeting for a website redesign can be seriously tricky. With so many moving pieces to consider, there is a lot of room for underestimating or miscalculating costs. We created our Website Redesign Budget Template so you can keep all of your redesign-related expenses in one convenient location.

Unsure if your current website is right for a redesign? Check out this HubSpot research report: Does Your Website Make the Grade? Chances Are, It's Barely Passing.

8. Event Budget Template

Download the Event Budget Template here.

When planning an event, the associated costs can seem obvious at first. There's the venue to consider, of course. And the P.A. system and microphones. And then the costs associated with booking and bringing in presenters/performers. That's pretty much it, right?

Wrong.

For example, does the venue come with tables/chairs, or will you have to rent those separately? Do you want your attendees to wear name tags, and if so, will you be printing out the name tags ahead of time or will attendees be writing their own names on blank tags?

If the latter, have you factored in the pens or markers you'll need to accommodate that? As you can see, planning for an event can lead you down many rabbit holes.

Use our Event Budget Template to stay organized.

Sample Marketing Budget

With your chosen template downloaded, it's time to consider which digital channels to allot a budget for. Hint: There's no right answer — it'll depend the market research you do to figure out where your specific audience spends most of its time.

If you find your buyer prefers learning and consuming content in the form of video, for example, you might invest more of your money in YouTube advertising.

Advertising Budget Example

Here's a small sample budget for a quarter's worth of expenses by a hypothetical company that has decided to invest heavily in video marketing. This template was created using the Master Budget Template, the first template listed in the section above.

Sample marketing budget showing a video advertising investment that exceeds budget by $2,420.

Based on the figures above, video advertising's total expenses for the quarter exceeded budget by $20, while full-time recruitment's total expenses exceeded budget by $2,400. This means the company is trending over budget for the first three months of the year.

Why might this happen? Perhaps a pay-per-click (PPC) campaign on YouTube received more clicks by viewers than expected, and a sharp video-savvy job candidate negotiated a higher salary.

Based on the difference between this company's planned spend and actual spend, their budget template produced the following graph:
sample marketing budget graph

Go now, and plan wisely — your marketing staff is counting on you.

Editor's Note: This blog post was originally published in December 2015 and has been updated for comprehensiveness.

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Biden administration OKs state request to use Medi-Cal to provide COVID-19 testing for low-income students

California will use Medicaid funding to help pay for coronavirus testing of low-income students, after receiving the OK from President Joe Biden’s administration, Gov. Gavin Newsom’s office announced Wednesday morning, March 3.

The announcement comes as Newsom, who will tour a Long Beach vaccination site Wednesday afternoon, continues pushing to assist schools across the state reopen safely. Newsom and the state Legislature recently struck a deal to provide $6.6 billion to do so, money that will support efforts to expande academic, mental health and social assistance for students; provide personal protective equipment; and COVID-19 testing.

The Biden administration’s approval will let the state use is Medicaid funding — called Medi-Cal here — funding to provide COVID-19 testing to students covered under the low-income healthcare program. Students from transitional kindergarten to 12th grade will be eligible.

Medi‐Cal, according to the governor’s press release, is the primary health care system for more than half of the state’s population under 20 years old and provides coverage to 50-to-55% of school-aged children in the state.

“I am grateful to our federal partners for approving our request to expand testing for low-income students,” Newsom said in a written statement, “to ensure schools can reopen safely in underserved neighborhoods that are bearing the brunt of pandemic hardships.

“Our top priority,” he added, “is getting students back in the classroom to not only meet their learning needs, but also their mental health and social-emotional needs.”

The California Department of Health Care Services had requested permission to provide COVID-19 testing in schools for Medi-Cal children in December. The request to the federal Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services was approved retroactively to Feb. 1 and will continue for 60 days after the end of the federal public health emergency.

The state and federal governments will now bear much of the costs for schools electing to implement COVID-19 testing as an additional precaution – especially in communities disproportionately impacted by the pandemic.

“As a pediatrician and father,” California Health and Human Services Secretary Dr. Mark Ghaly said in a statement, “I know schools are a vital place for our kids where in-person learning has a positive impact on their overall health and well-being.

“Further leveraging our state Medicaid program to increase access to testing,” he added, “will not only help us to reopen schools, but also ensure that testing becomes even more accessible for underserved students.”

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Rain arrives in Southern California, but how long will it last?

A single-day storm was expected to drop about a quarter-inch of rain in Southern California on Wednesday, March 3, with a few inches of snow in the local mountains, meteorologists said.

Huntington Beach and Seal Beach temporarily closed their beaches due to potential lightning strikes.

Hewey Nguyen shoots baskets at the Great Park in Irvine, CA on Wednesday, March 3, 2021 as storm clouds move in. Much of Orange County was expected to get rain. (Photo by Paul Bersebach, Orange County Register/SCNG)
Reese Ogura, 2, from Rancho Cucamonga, runs in her cardboard car with her mother Brianna at Central Park in Rancho Cucamonga as a storm approaches the area on Wednesday morning Mar. 3, 2021. Ogura was part of a group that is home schooled and were doing a project on transportation. (Photo by Will Lester, Inland Valley Daily Bulletin/SCNG)