Your thoughts? - Keyword Domains

Hi,
So I am working with a company selling a new trendy product. We have a few locations and an online store about to go up.
My boss wants me to make sure it ranks in Google. (I know, it's never guaranteed.)

I've registered it in Google Places/Plus, Yelp, and all the usual networks where I post relevant content everyday.
I've also went ahead and started writing a blog on the main site followed by the usual meta tags, meta description, sitemap, and trying to work on back links by reaching out to review blogs and websites, so far no real luck there.

What else can I do?

Aside from that, my main question has to do with keyword domains.
I know with the newest Google penguin update frowns among them when used a certain way so I'm trying to be very careful.

We just purchased 81 keyword domain names.
Some with local cities in the name and some with exact keywords of search terms. (A lot of valuable domains, I was surprised.)
I made sure they were registered with the private option godaddy give you.

I know a few suggestions I've read about are:

1. 301 redirect - I have heard that's a no-no, but could be used on specific main site pages if they catered to that keyword domain.

2. Landing page/microsite - Heard they must be hosted on a separate server, only have 3-4 keywords and about 800+ words completely unique. My problem is, how can I do that for 81 sites? Each on needing a unique server, etc.

Is there any options I'm not considering?
What's your thoughts and process?