As the saying goes, “times are changing” and that means our customers are changing too. More people are shopping online and we’re being flooded with a whitewater rush of information through social networks, websites, emails, street signs, bathroom stalls, and, you get the idea. So, while consistency, reliability and trustworthiness are important, it’s also important not to get stuck in our comfort zones of marketing as usual. In order to embrace change and keep pace with the market, it’s important for marketers to evaluate standard processes so as not to be left behind in a state of erroneous dust … i.e. it’s important for marketers to prove themselves wrong before someone else does and takes their competitive advantage. Here are five easy ways to prove yourself wrong.

1. Implement A/B testing.

Conduct your own little experiments with your marketing efforts to see which of your approaches yield better results. For example, if you send weekly mass emails at the same time of day each week, try splitting your audience into two sample groups and sending the email at different times to each sample. See which sample group has more opens. Similarly, if you’re running digital ads, publish two different designs and see which one refers more people.

2. Poke holes in your metrics.

After you’ve conducted a simple A/B test and determined which approach works better (A or B), dig deeper and conduct more specific experiments. Test your emails with microsegments of your audience, personalized and unpersonalized subject lines, various times of the day and during different seasons . Compare results of your marketing experiments with different variables and determine which approaches work best to meet your goals.

3. Don’t settle for easy correlation.

Exploring data and identifying correlations helps marketers discover unknown relationships that provide insights about their audience. Knowing obvious correlations (like the positive correlation between Facebook ad dollars and Facebook fans) doesn’t help uncover new information. When analyzing data, factor in deeper categories of data sets such as date of purchase, location, or age and consider other variables such as product season or PR activities.

4. Seek out new and opposing viewpoints.

It’s great to congregate with like-minded people and in fact, it’s important to do so. But it’s also easy to slip into homogenous bubbles of narrow-minded associations. To prevent complacency in your work, have friendly conversations with people of different ideologies. Connecting on social networks, blogs and in LinkedIn groups are great ways to do this. Either these little chats will educate and inspire new ideas, or they’ll validate your current approaches.

5. Keep asking questions.

What do you think gives you a competitive advantage? Why did you have more social engagement last week? From where does your website traffic come? How much money are you saving your customers? How do consumers use your products? Asking questions like these will keep you on your toes and remind you why do what you do or perhaps, remind you why you need to revamp your practices.

Trying to prove yourself wrong isn’t about being cynical; rather, it’s about considering unconsidered variables and unorthodox approaches. By keeping an open mind and continually evaluating ourselves, we are able learn more about our audiences, audit our practices and ensure effective marketing.

How have you proven yourself wrong lately?