Recently Busted Halo® hired a professional marketing research consultant to conduct a series of focus groups with different segments of our audience, all in their twenties. The conversations focused on how these “millennials” address their spiritual needs and what they seek in an online faith experience. The results will help determine the direction we take in the near future as we revamp Busted Halo’s digital content and online look and feel for 2016.
Everyone interviewed consider themselves “spiritual but not religious” and none were currently affiliated with any religious community. Some were raised Catholic, some were not. Some we chose were familiar with us already, but we also intentionally sought out young people who had never seen or heard of Busted Halo®.
We selected this variety of twentysomethings for the study to help us attract a broader base of young people in the future. Research suggests that most young adults today know little about their faith or the differences between Christian denominations. We did find among those we interviewed a certain hunger for spirituality. We wanted to know what topics interest them and how they feed their faith online. We hope that their answers will help us craft an online spiritual experience that will attract others like them.
While most gave high marks to Busted Halo® for its content, they were frank and unflinching about their recommendations to redesign the website. Our look is seen as more busy and cluttered than the simple, clean user experience most millennials prefer.
But just to give you an idea, here’s a sampling of some feedback we received:
“I really liked how Busted Halo is able to take what is going on in the world and adapt it to find its spiritual relevance.”
“Busted Halo challenges its readers to dig deeper, to ask more questions and to engage in the online conversation.”
“Busted Halo offers me advice on real lifetime issues that I am asking myself at this age.”