Link popularity is extremely important.
However you should not be tempted to follow the example of an SEO company named "SEO Inc." - they bought excessive amounts of inbound, external links from other websites and as a result, their top placement for "SEO" in Google was - from one day to another - completely gone. They were removed by Google for violating the Google Webmaster rules (which forbid link buying), and I don't think they're back in the SERPS yet.
So be careful - if you should ever consider link buying, don't do it excessively.
Getting back to the topic:
I would recommend
link baiting.
Do it "white-hat" and place some relevant and attractive content online, then connect it to
topically related forums to generate some traffic (only where it's really useful, don't annoy anyone).
Use
social media websites like del.icio.us or digg.com to promote your content. If it's attractive enough, you will gain a lot of diggs and that means a lot of inbound links. Everyone who dugg you, will automatically have a link to your content in his profile, so the more diggs, the better.
