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Who is Johanna Devries?

As a certified personal trainer and overall fitness fanatic, Johanna Devries has quickly become well-versed in the world of online fitness. Six years ago, Devries built the Grow with Jo brand, helping others to lose weight, become fitter, and develop a better relationship with their bodies. Recently, Devries has built an intuitive app that hosts a selection of workouts, meal planning resources, and intermittent fasting trackers. She goes into more detail about the creation of the app.

‘I wanted to create an app where people could go for a more holistic approach to health and fitness. So as you go into the app, you realize that it’s not just fitness, it’s also nutrition and mental health. It’s taking care of all aspects, mental, spiritual, and physical and that’s kind of how I envisioned it and that’s what it’s turning into. It’s slowly developing and getting better every month.’ 

A post shared by growwithjo (@growwithjo)

With a 4.7 star rating on the App Store, Grow with Jo has proven itself to be a success. Devries also explains the subscription plans that are currently associated with the app.

‘It’s a paid app and the subscription is $20 a month or $60 for the year but we do offer 7 days free. It is under the free app heading in the app store so you can try it out for seven days and after that, you would go into a subscription.’  

Using Social Media To Build a Fitness Empire

This fitness influencer posted their first video on YouTube back in 2019, which has now gained an incredible 106,000 views. Since then, the Grow with Jo YouTube channel has nearly 2 million subscribers and over 120 million views collectively. Devries has also branched out onto other platforms such as TikTok and Instagram, where she has seen a great deal of engagement.

‘I have multiple TikTok pages and multiple Instagram pages. These are my personal one, my community one, and then my app one. I have a YouTube channel that’s almost at 2 million subscribers and I promote there as well. Then, we also do Facebook and TikTok ads.’ 

Johanna Devries also mentions how TikTok has been helpful, especially when it comes to influencer marketing.

‘TikTok has been a really great resource for new business owners and I kind of treat this as like a new business as it’s only a year old. So kind of playing around with that and getting influencers that are already using the app to share their experience. We recently did a campaign that’s all about routine so the girls in the campaign were able to show how they go throughout their day and use the app throughout the day, instead of just a one-time use.’ 

As social media continues to be a prevalent force within Devries’ overall marketing strategy, she also mentions how building an online community has impacted her growth.

‘One thing that I would say sticks out to me as a marketing strategy that we’ve been working on is just word of mouth. A lot of our community is just very involved and they share with their friends, their family, and even just me encouraging them to do that is really big.’ 

Differentiating Your Brand Within the Wellness Industry

Despite the health and wellness industry becoming more competitive as time goes on, Grow with Jo is still making tremendous strides. Devries states what she believes makes her app more attractive than others on the market.

‘I would say that there are a lot of features that make our app stand out. I think the greatest thing about it is that it has multiple features kind of coming into one. We have an intermittent fasting feature that we just released last month and I know a lot of apps have trackers for intermittent fasting but I haven’t seen it done with fitness, nutrition, and all of those components.’ 

Johanna Devries also enjoys creating content that draws a lot of attention, further pushing her app’s identity and features. She describes how she implements an effective content strategy to help promote her app. 

‘TikTok is always short-form content for me. I like to stick with trending sounds and trending dances, and share information that way. Through Instagram, it’s more of an aesthetic appeal so I kind of go for a morning routine or creating a recipe to catch somebody’s attention.’

Devries’ Passion For Community Building

The growwithjo_unified Instagram page has over 30,000 followers and has been a key asset in Devries’ drive to create a stronger connection with her fans and followers. Focusing on positivity and progress, the Grow with Jo brand has now become its own bustling hub. In order to push this idea further, Johanna Devries has even created her own fitness festival. 

‘We created Grow Fest and what we did was we created zooms, lives, premieres, and we also do giveaways. Basically, a bunch of things happen every day for two weeks as well as a challenge within the app. The second week was a seven-day rave challenge and it was kind of like a HIIT challenge where people could listen to their favorite EDM music and workout.’ 

Johanna Devries goes on to mention her plans for 2023 and hopes that these events can become more popular and personable in the near future.

‘We did it all virtually but I’m hoping next year we’ll be able to do it in person. We are setting up a studio and it’s almost done. I have a recording studio and we are going to host events there. So 2023 is going to be a big in-person event.’ 

Overcoming The Difficulties Attached To Being A Fitness Influencer

Even though Johanna Devries has shown herself to be a dominant force in both influencer marketing and the fitness industry in general, she still struggles with the negative comments she sometimes receives online. 

‘I have been struggling with this for years. As an influencer, you develop a thick skin, but words still hurt especially when you feel as if some of it is true or something that you’ve been thinking about yourself.’

Yet, Johanna Devries does not let these comments affect her long-term vision of expanding and developing the Grow with Jo brand. She further explains how she plans to expand her team and prospects as time goes on.

‘Well, in terms of production, we are going to be upping our production. So we are getting our studio in the near future and we’re also going to be hiring more of a team. We already have a huge team behind Grow with Jo but they’re all contractors so they’re all over the world. So we are going to have more of an in-person team here and our production value is going to go up, which is going to help us reach new people and allow people to see the value in the products that we have to offer.’ 

Johanna Devries is determined to see an increase in engagement across all of the Grow with Jo content, constantly working alongside popular platforms to connect with her growing community. She ends by explaining how fitness can be customized to suit almost anybody.

‘My main message to everyone everywhere is that fitness needs to be unique to you. It needs to be something that you enjoy, something that challenges you but you enjoy it and you can stay consistent with it.’ 

Melody Day is a UK-based copywriter, working in developing industries such as travel, beauty, and lifestyle. She creates digestible copy that is fully optimized for SEO and gains positive engagement from readers. They are able to create engaging blogs and website copy for a range of unique brands.

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