My problem is opposite of most - I know how to build online communities; however, i am having problems reaching those who need it. Any suggestions?

What kind of topics will it be rellavant too? Pretty hard to advise you without knowing the ares to look at.

forum feeds - hosting/subscribing to other forum feeds, rss feeds, newsgroups, and newsletters. Basically, the service has 100,000 feeds that can be subscribed to, which will help assist in forum build-ups and help build up a community. My problem is that the target market users are forum users; however, I can't seem to talk to them on topic because I get hit for 'spamming' or 'self promotion' regardless of how on topic my reply is. Any suggestion on how can market forum users outside of the forums themselves?

A little tip for forum posting, just place your URL in your sig. You dont need self promotion as a lot of people see them and click them. I cant say I have much experiance of your area though but other than Directories it may pay to advertise your site on relelvant sites. Just think like your users, if you were them, where would they go? Once you can answer that then start going there too and seeing how you can use that resource to send them your way. Maybe contact webmasters for link exchanges, or to buy some advertising.

thanks for the advice. I tried the banners on some 'relevant' sites; however, didn't get much response and shelled out a good bit money. i am thinking about purchasing other people's space on their signature line to post my URL - heard any success on that?

To be honest I have never tried it. It sounds like a good idea but difficult to keep track of. If your going to do it I suggest limiting it to only a small number of people so that you can easily monitor them and see which ones perform and also check to see they keep it there. Also keep in mind its against some Forums Terms of Service to post links in Sigs, so this will also have to be considered before approaching people.

As for banners, perhaps you should try text links? Cheaper and they seem to be the in thing right now. Webmasters love them as they are good for loading times, easy to add etc, and buyers love them as they can pass on PR.

I know a lot of people who rent out signatures. It's really good if you can even find a moderator or staff member of a community, or a member with a really good reputation in the community, because in that case, the link can hold prestige to all of the community members who know the person.

Text links are really good for SEO. Banners work best for well known companies when you're trying to improve company branding. To generate the most number of uniques, go with PPC.