One of the methods I don't really see discussed too often is blog carnival marketing. It's probably one of the easiest ways to get authority backlinks for blogs. A blog carnival is, in short, a post made on a blog with a collection of links that were submitted to the author. You can submit your own post and get a nice free backlink and some traffic. The great part about blog carnivals is that they require minimal effort and have amazing returns for the time required to submit. Check out my article on blog carnivals for more info.
Just for clarification: the actual website that compiles blog carnivals is Blog Carnival (I never would've guessed it).
I started using blog carnivals about two weeks ago, as you stated not many people discuss them in this time i have found them to be easy sources of traffic. Definitely worth trying.
I held a Carnival in the past and got varied results. If you can get a lot of submissions, though, it is a great way to get some traffic and a lot of links.
Blogcarnival.com is great but unfortunately doesn't have the kind of Design/marketing carnival category that I'm looking for. Maybe I'll have to start up a carnival myself. Anyone have tips or experience on recruiting people to your carnival?