Had a look at my competitors and it seems they have hundreds of links placed on blogs of no relevance. The blogs use a blogroll but how do they manage to get there link in the database without being a blog themselves.
Possibly posting comments in the blog entries? Many sites will allow you to backlink from the comments sections.
Many webmasters have multiple blogs (small blog networks) so once you contact the webmster - you link may pop up at different places in no time...