Movie Blog Progress Report 2023 Q4

My goals for 2023 Q4 were the following:

1. Job hunting…
2. Solidifying automations across the site
3. Good, solid, evergreen YouTube video advertising the movie review journal
4. Catching up on all the major 2023 movies
5. Adding a new Movie Review Generator
6. Checking that all existing MRG’s and MR Templates are in good shape
7. Posting once a week

This quarterly review will actually be covering progress from October 2023 - March 1st 2024. So when I say Q4, its really Q4 to date. Q4+. Q4 exspansion package. I think you get it...

Movie Blog Progress Report 2023 Q4

My goals for the last quarter of 2023 were at least partially fulfilled. 

I did get a job. Yay! Meaning that I have a lot less time to work on the blog, unfortunately. Boo! But it is nice to have a steady source of income while I still figure out how to make the most of this blog.

I did clean up my email automations a little bit as I was transferring information from the old MailerLite to the new version. It still needs some updating but it’s at least decent for now. 

I did create two brand new YouTube videos promoting the movie review journal and for the amount of time, effort, and energy that I put into the videos, the payout was disappointingly unmatched. Creating YouTube videos is not my happy place. I was getting so fed up. 

I was surprisingly able to catch up to most of the major releases of 2023 although I stopped short on journaling all of them because I was stressing myself out way too much. Especially far too much for a video that would most likely not even hit 100 views. 

I did not create a new Movie Review Generator. Those things take a bit of brain power, something I’ve been dangerously low on lately.

I did look through and refine some movie review templates so I feel pretty good about those. They’re doing a good job of building the email list. 

And finally, I did not even come close to posting once a week. Not even kinda close. 

Overall, given how crazy the end of 2023 was for me, I actually accomplished more than I realized.

Movie Blog Income Report

Income for Q4:

Affiliates

Nov: $68.53

Dec: $98.80

Jan: $1.29 + $265.42

Total: $425.04

Ads:

Oct: $20.82

Feb: $22.52

Products:

Movie Journal: $3.48

Total Income for Q4: $471.86

Expenses:

WP Rocket: -$39.99

Frozen Laptop Fix: -$84.95

Regal Unlimited: -$21.99

Amazon Video Prop: -$10.59

Total: -$157.52

Net Income: $314.34

I’m not mad about that net income. That’s pretty decent considering the amount of work I didn’t do that last quarter. 

Pageviews for Q3

I don’t really like the way the new Google Analytics displays my data but this is the best graph I could come up with to show the progression of page views into the fourth quarter of the year. 

Over the year 2023, you can see that the user and pageviews stay pretty steady throughout the year, not budging much despite my tireless yet insufficient efforts.

But in that last quarter of the year, the pageviews begin to plummet a bit. 

Fear not, they’re still pretty steady somehow but for sure, the lack of consistent activity on the site took a hit on the pageviews at the end of December into January 2024. 

Top Pages for Q3

The “Movie Review Examples” article has been dominating this Q4 into 2024. It has the highest pageviews by far of all the other articles on this site. 

Evergreen articles seem to definitely have more value and longevity than actual movie reviews with “How to Rate a Movie Review” staying in the top 10 as well as “Keep Track of Movies Watched.”

For some reason, my review of “The Batman” is still doing really well making me regret the money I spent to rent that awful movie a lot less. 

And “The Menu” summary is surprisingly doing pretty well too although I really didn’t put that much thought or effort into that review. 

Maybe I should consider more summary reviews in the future. 

Movie review templates and movie review generators are also still doing really well. 

I believe evergreen content and tools like the generators and the templates are what are really keeping the site afloat when I’m not able to be consistent with reviews. 

Email Subscribers

484 Subscribers. In Q3, I had 244 subscribers meaning that we nearly doubled in subscribers since the previous quarter.

That’s probably my biggest victory for this Q4 review. 

Such a shame that I’m not actually making the most of my email subscribers by actually reaching out to them regularly…

But it’s nice to know that my email-collecting templates are actually working. It gives me hope for actually profitable strategies that I can implement in the future. 

Social Stats

Youtube: 112 subscribers (up by 6)

The only social media statistic that I’m going to document this time around is Youtube cuz I’ve not really stepped foot on any of my other social media platforms lately. I’m not expecting any change there.

I did upload two new Youtube videos for the movie review journal and I guess that got about 6 more people interested. Or more likely – 6 people accidentally hit the subscribe button and still haven’t noticed yet. 

Movie Journal Sales

I’ve had a total of 3 journal sales which is honestly pretty good cuz my strategy for journal sales is pretty haphazard right now. I definitely want to do better with email marketing for this one. 

Goals for 2024

Just keeping this ship afloat. I don’t want to sink or lose the progress I’ve made but I also have so many other priorities now that I can’t guarantee how much time I can devote to the blog. 

Because of this, I definitely want to try to get other movie bloggers on board. I’ve done a lot of the hard work of creating a platform for movie reviews only to not have a lot of time and energy to actually write as many movie reviews as I would like. 

Opening the blog to other movie reviews, opinions, and movie lovers will help to keep the blog afloat and to actually create a relationship and community with people who like to analyze and document their movies like I do. 

Besides that, yes, just keeping up with email marketing to continue to promote the projects that I’ve already established in the past. 

Making sure I keep the evergreen content that is doing well up to date and refreshing the affiliate articles that bring in sales. 

Capitalizing on the movie review templates that are popular and trying to gain repeat visitors from that. 

Given the writers’ strike from last year, things have slowed in terms of exciting movies and TV shows to look forward to this year so I’m not putting pressure on myself to catch all the biggest releases even if I have no affinity toward them.

It is going to be a lax 2024 while I try to find balance in my personal life as well as the blog. 

So here’s to a decent 2024 where our head at least stays above water 🥂😅

Peace, love, and lots of popcorn,

IMO Flicks