Enamored of Whole Foods Market, Jackie Huba decided to spend a week patronizing the various food and beverage stations at the chain's 80,000-square-foot Austin flagship—for each and every meal. Huba recounts the experience at the Church of the Customer Blog. "My week wasn't Oprah-transformational (I didn't cry)," she says, "but we bonded." And she learned a few marketing lessons, among them:

Cater to the niche. "Organic food may have started as a tiny beacon in the world of corporate farming," writes Huba, "but for nearly 30 years, Whole Foods stayed true to the niche. Maybe nurtured it, too." As an example, she includes a snapshot of a sign explaining why you won't find one packet of Splenda in the store. It reads: "Due to our commitment to sell only products with natural ingredients, we cannot offer artificial sweeteners or sugar-free syrups." Now that's devotion.

Let fans spread the word digitally. Though the media badge Huba collected each morning allowed her to photograph the store's interior, she says, "that didn't stop employees, sometimes herds of them, from accosting me (politely, usually) when I whipped out my D40 Nikon to snap a picture of some sexy cous cous." According to Huba, the store's strict no-photograph policy—designed to prevent competitors from stealing ideas—is not only impossible to enforce in an era of camera-equipped phones, it hobbles customer evangelists who want to spread the word through social media.

The Po!nt: Studying a store you admire, even if it has nothing to do with your business, can be a critical element of defining do's and don'ts for your own business.

Source: Church of the Customer Blog. Click here for the post.

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