WeCom vs WeChat for B2B Lead Gen

1. Positioning, what each platform is for

• WeChat Official Account (OA), your public face, discoverability, articles, SEO inside WeChat, menus, light CRM, and basic automation. Best for awareness to MQL.
• WeCom (Enterprise WeChat), your sales team’s workspace, contact ownership per rep, moments for business, advanced contact tagging, and service routing. Best for MQL to SQL and account nurturing.

2. Setup models and requirements

• OA: choose Subscription vs Service (see our separate guide). Verify entity, set brand, menus, autoresponders, and templates.
• WeCom: register your organization, create departments and users, set external contact rules, welcome messages, tags, and approval flows.
• Together: use OA for top-of-funnel and handoff warm leads to WeCom reps via QR codes, links, or mini workflows.

3. Lead capture and routing funnels

• OA → WeCom handoff: article CTA opens a lead form or mini program, success screen shows a WeCom QR for the right rep (tagged by industry or region).
• WeCom “Contact me” QR: reps place their WeCom QR on event booths, slides, signatures, and OA articles to build owned contact books.
• Menu routing: OA menu item “Talk to Sales” opens a WeCom group or assigns a rep via rules.

4. CRM, automation, and attribution

• OA: basic follower data, article reads, menu clicks. Good for campaign-level reporting.
• WeCom: external contact profiles, tags, chat histories, and task automation. Easier rep-level attribution and pipeline hygiene.
• Combined: pass UTM-like params into forms and mini programs, write back tags to WeCom, and sync to your CRM. Weekly reports by source, rep, and stage.

5. Content, messaging, and limits

• OA: long-form articles, templates, scheduled pushes, and search visibility. Messaging cadence limited to platform rules.
• WeCom: 1:1 or group chat from reps, templated welcome flows, and broadcast to owned external contacts where permitted.
• Rule of thumb: publish and capture on OA, converse and close in WeCom.

6. Data visibility and compliance

• OA: audience analytics and content metrics at account level, less granular user-by-user visibility.
• WeCom: structured contact ownership with export controls and audit options; better for regulated B2B workflows.
• Governance: define data retention, handover when reps leave, and approval for bulk messages.

7. Playbooks that actually work

• Event playbook: OA post → booth scan of WeCom QR → instant welcome message → tag “Expo-YYYY” → meeting link → post-event nurture track.
• Account-based: OA article per vertical → hidden param tags → WeCom routes to vertical rep → case study drop → call booking.
• Partner channel: co-branded OA content → WeCom group with partner AE + your SE → shared demo, shared follow-up checklist.

8. Quick decision tree

9. Launch checklist