All formats, grammages, paper types and other options are the result of our time-tested experience. Of course, you can also implement custom wishes simply with optilyz. In addition to the mailing formats listed here, we also realize brochures and catalogs. If you are interested in these topics, just contact us at support@optilyz.com



Formats:


Postcards

Letters & Combinations

Combination with flyer as a supplement

Envelopes

Self mailers

Self mailers with mini catalog


POSTCARDS

Postcards score high points because of their visually expressive power. With clear slogans and an emotional, visual imagery, you can immediately arouse the interest of your customers. You can find out what other factors are important for your postcards to delight customers in this blog article.



optilyz offers the following postcard formats:


Formats  
Maxi PostcardDIN A5DIN Lang


You can choose between 250g or 300g.


Grammage 
250g300g


Choose the right paper for every occasion, whether matte, glossy or with FSC certification. Important: all our standard papers are already FSC papers. You can find out more about this here.

Here, almost all companies rely on matte photo matte.


Paper types  
MatteGlossyMatte with FSC certificationGlossy with FSC certification




LETTERS & COMBINATIONS

Letters are the best choice for building trust. Since they are less promotional and are sent in an envelope, the open rate is particularly high here. You can find out what other criteria you should consider for ideal letters in this blog article.


From numerous applications, we know that DIN A4 and a grammage of 90g is the optimal choice for advertising mail. Lower grammage becomes "translucent" and higher grammage, while more valuable, significantly increases costs.



Format Grammage
DIN A4 90g
 


Choose between classic offset paper or FSC paper. Almost all companies rely on classic offset paper.


Paper types 
Offset-PaperOffset-Paper with FSC certification


Both one-sided and two-sided printing is easily possible. Though it is important to note that we do not currently support personalization on the second page.


Pages number 
1 Page2 Pages



COMBINATION WITH FLYER AS SUPPLEMENT

Combine your sales letter with eye-catching flyers as a supplement. For example, you can add attractive product suggestions to your cover letter. Flyers behave in a similar way to postcards, but are not addressed and are therefore considered as inserts in the envelope. These can be personalized - which of course increases costs and should only be used if personalization on the letter is inadequate.


You can add different types of flyers, but in Germany only DIN Lang flyers make sense. Because these make ideal use of a DIN Lang mailing envelope. Abroad, DIN A5 is often used.


 Formats 
DIN A5DIN Lang


The optimal grammages for flyer supplements are 135g or 170g.


Grammage 
135g170g


Choose the right paper for every occasion. 

 

Paper types  
MatteGlossyMatte with FSC certificationGlossy with FSC certification
  


Choose from 2, 4 or 6 pages to tailor the size of your flyer to your needs or to convert it as a flyer.


Page number  
2 Pages4 Pages6 Pages





ENVELOPES


Envelopes are used for letters and complex mailings with multiple components. But they are also used very often to send postcards that look less like advertising at first glance. If you choose an envelope without a window, it must be personalized. In most cases, however, a window is used.


The most common envelope format is DIN Lang. DIN C5 and DIN C4 are also possible, but make sense only in special cases (since the postage cost increases).

Formats  
DIN LangDIN C5DIN C4






SELF MAILERS

Self-mailers give you maximum space for your advertising message. Use this format to give customers up to 10 pages of exciting insights into your products. Complete your self-mailers with response elements such as perforated coupon cards to 

give additional purchase incentives. With optilyz you send your self-mailers and mini-catalogs optimized for postage.



Attention: A selfmailer can be a very complex product with many layout requirements to follow. That is why such requests should be always consulted with your customer success manager first.

A tangible example for its complexity: a fashion customer used a self-mailer with a printed “flap” equally matching the graphic underneath on the front - in this case the customer’s graphics team has to make sure to include 2mm (because of the selfmailer's width) more content of the graphic on the flap to match the overlap exacetly to the graphic below.


This format makes sense especially for slightly higher volumes and less time-critical applications, since the production and setup costs are higher.

You can choose from the envelope formats Maxi Selfmailer and DIN Lang.


Formats 
Maxi SelfmailerDIN Lang


The grammage of the self-mailer decreases with increasing number of pages, so that you send your self-mailers always optimized for postage.


Grammage  
200g190g150g


For self-mailers, we strongly recommend using matte print paper.


Paper type
Matte


You can design your self-mailer with up to 10 pages.


Page number   
4 Pages6 Pages8 Pages10 Pages






SELF MAILER WITH MINI CATALOG

Combine your self-mailer with a mini-catalog to serve customers up to 4 + 24 pages, e.g. to present comprehensive impressions from a new collection.  In this case, the surrounding self-mailer is also called envelope. In addition to the mini catalog, you can also easily add a perforated reply card to increase customer dialogue.


The grammage for the envelope starts at 130g. With a higher page count we use a weight of 115g to ensure the postage-saving shipping.


Envelope grammage
130g115g



The grammage of the mini catalog also decreases as the number of pages increases, so that you can always send your self-mailers and mini catalogs at postage-saving rates.


Mini catalog grammage  
80g60g50g35g



Starting from 16 pages we use the lighter LWC paper to keep the postage costs to a minimum.

Mini catalog paper types
MatteLWC paper



The mini catalog offers maximum space for your advertising message on 8 to a maximum of 24 pages.


Page number    
8 Pages12 Pages16 Pages20 Pages24 Pages


Also interesting: Read this article to find out which formats are considered standard in which countries.